Wildfires in BC escalate amid drought, federal aid on the way
Wildfires in British Columbia continue to rise amid an ongoing drought, and federal aid — including military resources — is on the way.
Bowinn Ma, BC’s minister of disaster management and climate preparedness, says federal personnel will work alongside about 2,000 BC Wildfire Service crew members as they fight about 370 fires across the province.
Canada’s Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair announced the aid on Friday after his counterpart in British Columbia made the request.
The number of highly visible, threatening or potentially damaging “note wildfires” has risen from 17 on Friday to 20.
Maps from the BC Wildfire Service and Emergency Management BC show about 70 wildfire-related evacuation warnings and orders on Saturday.
A wildfire burning about 30 miles north of Bella Coola prompted an evacuation order Friday that spans several recreational properties along a 12-mile stretch of the Dean River that runs through the Central Coast Regional District.
Curtis Slingerland, the district’s top administrative officer, says the fire is burning in a remote area and the district is in close contact with the wildfire department.
Slingerland says he drove from Bella Coola to Salmon Arm on Friday and the air was smoky almost the entire 840-mile route, starting at “the Hill,” a steep stretch of Highway 20 that connects Bella Coola to the rest of the county.
“The smoke really came up at the top of the hill… and then went all the way into the Shuswap,” says Slingerland, a region in BC’s southern interior.
A special air quality statement from Environment Canada warns of smoky skies stretching across much of eastern BC from the Yukon border to the Kootenays.
The Bulkley-Nechako Regional District issued two evacuation orders Saturday for properties on the northeast shore of Elwin Lake, east of Houston, as well as properties west of Wisteria Mainline Road near Horseshoe and Fish Lakes.
The Cariboo Regional District, meanwhile, upgraded an evacuation warning to an order Friday afternoon. The order includes 135 plots of nearly 3,340 square kilometers in the Lhoosk’uz area, west of Quesnel.
BC’s drought bulletin shows that nearly all of the province is experiencing drought of at least level 3 of five, with the Fort Nelson Basin in the northeast, the Bulkley Basin and all of Vancouver Island classified as the most severe level.
While wildfire activity was largely concentrated in northeastern BC earlier this season, most of the notable fires are now clustered in the Bulkley-Nechako and Cariboo regions of the central interior, between Prince George and Terrace.
An update from the BC Wildfire Service posted Thursday shows that fires have scorched nearly 12,300 square miles of forested land so far this season, eclipsing the 10-year average of about 760 for the same time of year.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 15, 2023.
