Wildfires

Wildfires

Canada - record-breaking heat wave, wildfires grip B.C. with efforts to combat 63 wildfires being complicated by dry and windy weather throughout the province Monday.

In Metro Vancouver, temperatures were expected to stay as high as 30 degrees Celsius until later in the week. Environment Canada says temperatures in northern B.C. are 8 to 10 degrees Celsius above normal, and more heat records are expected to be broken this week. Record-high temperatures were measured in four communities on the weekend — Lytton, Pemberton, Lillooet and Kamloops — with the average high around 40.5C.

Close to two dozen support staff from Ontario were sent to Kamloops Monday to help manage the logistics of fighting fires in the coming days, as B.C. families were told to stay away from their homes. With lightning expected in many areas of the province, crews in all six B.C. fire centres remain on high alert. Nearly 70 people have been forced to leave as an uncontained wildfire rages in the Cariboo region west of Quesnel, B.C., but the Euchiniko Lakes blaze is not threatening any homes.

The fire, caused by lightning, grew significantly Sunday night and has scorched 20-square-kilometres of woodland 120 km west of Quesnel, since it was discovered last Tuesday. Although homes are not in immediate danger, an evacuation order was issued Sunday for two people at the Euchiniko Lake Ranch Lodge, while 66 members of the Kluskus Indian Reserve agreed to evacuate to Quesnel because of fears the flames could cut roads to the remote region.

Meanwhile, the eight-day-old Red Deer Creek fire, 61 km southeast of Tumbler Ridge, B.C., is now estimated to cover 38-square-kilometres and is uncontained, keeping three evacuated oil-and-gas camps shut down. Twenty-three of the province’s 63 fires are considered notable for their size, location or potential danger, and four, including the 62-square-kilometre Chelaslie River blaze in central B.C., are listed as interface fires threatening homes or properties.