A water bomber plane drops water over the Drought Hill wildfire burning near Peachland, B.C., on Friday.Aaron Hemens/The Globe and Mail
A truck hauling heavy machinery down a highway in British Columbia’s dry Okanagan region caught fire Wednesday, sparking a blaze in the nearby bush that has forced nearly a thousand people from their homes.
Patrick Van Minsel, Mayor of the District of Peachland, is among them.
But he said the aggressive actions by provincial wildfire fighters, the community’s volunteer fire department and previous efforts by the community to clean the surrounding bush of a natural buildup of fuels has ensured that there have been no injuries or damaged buildings.
“I was very impressed by their approach and they were very fast,” Mr. Van Minsel said of the firefighters.
By Thursday afternoon, the local regional district had lifted evacuation orders for most of the 400 homes on the outskirts of the small town south of Kelowna, but the mayor said that he and the residents of roughly 130 houses in the area still couldn’t return.
A day earlier, he ran home to grab his “go bag” with essentials such as ID and a change of clothes and spent 20 minutes trying and failing to find his cat Cybil, who he says can access her food and water dishes by entering through a cat door.
Ash falls on Lytton, B.C., as wildfire triggers evacuation alerts
The Drought Hill fire is one of 20 that ignited Wednesday in B.C., adding to 40 others burning in the province, according to the daily snapshot provided Thursday by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, which co-ordinates the transfer of personnel and equipment coast to coast.
To date, B.C. has seen 723,756 hectares scorched this year − an area slightly less than last year at this same time but attributed to significantly fewer fires (651 compared with 1,062).
The agency stated that B.C.’s hot and dry conditions will likely continue until a possible downturn during the coming long weekend. Rain is forecast for parts of the province in the next few days. Colder fronts often bring a day or two of rain, but also higher winds and more lightning.
Meanwhile, the Lytton First Nation, which was devastated four years ago by a wildfire, has ordered that residents on some of its reserves be evacuated again.
The First Nation issued an evacuation order Thursday for two sparsely populated reserves because of immediate danger caused by an uncontrolled wildfire burning nearby, about 10 kilometres south of the village of Lytton.
The order signed Thursday said residents must leave the Lytton 26A and Skwayaynope 26 reserves immediately and head to a reception centre.
A spokesperson for the First Nation said it was not the same area that was evacuated in June, 2021, when much of nearby Lytton was destroyed by a wildfire and two people were killed.
Barj Dehaan said he was driving back home to Vancouver on Wednesday when he started seeing smoke about 30 kilometres east of Lytton.
“As I got closer, I could see this huge plume of smoke. And as I got closer, I could see the literal fire as well, trees on fire. I have not seen a live fire like that before,” he said Thursday.
He said the region has been very hot.
“The air quality was poor, and I could feel a burning sensation in my throat, strong smell of burning wood. And then I started thinking about the people who live in that town, that here they are again, having to deal with a fire that seems to be out of control,” he said.
The fire near Lytton is one of a handful of significant fires burning in the province in areas where Environment Canada has issued heat warnings this week, with temperatures in the high 30s.
Also on Thursday, the BC Wildfire Service upgraded a blaze in the Fraser Valley to a “wildfire of note” and warned campers to leave the Harrison Lake area as roads are closed ahead of the long weekend.
With a report from The Canadian Press