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#BCWildfire Service continues to action Kookipi Creek wildfire (V11337) originally located approximately 16 km northwest of Boston Bar and seven km east of Nahatlatch Lake. It’s currently 8,791 ha in size.
Source – BC Wildfire Service
B.C. Premier David Eby declared a provincial state of emergency Friday due to the unpredictable and evolving wildfire situation.
As of 7:15 p.m. local time, according to CBC News Canada, 380 wildfires were burning across the province. According to the emergency management minister, 15,000 people are on evacuation order across B.C. and 20,000 more are under evacuation alert.
On Friday the McDougall Creek wildfire, an out-of-control fire in southern B.C. grew more than one hundredfold in 24 hours and forced more than 2,400 properties to be evacuated, Reuters reported. As of late Friday evening, it covered an area of 105 square kilometers (40.5 sq. miles), according to the B.C. Wildfire Service.
The fire was centered around Kelowna, a city some 300 kilometers (180 miles) east of Vancouver, with a population of about 150,000. Conditions continued to deteriorate into Friday night, forcing the call for a state of emergency.
“The state of emergency declaration … communicates to people across the province the seriousness of the deteriorating situation,” Eby said. “(It) enables a number of legal tools for us to issue specific orders and to ensure that resources are available.”
The Vancouver Sun is reporting that Eby said he spent the day on Friday talking to community and First Nations leaders and their message was to not put others at risk by staying in their homes if an evacuation order is issued and to not travel to wildfire zones for non-essential reasons.
Other large fires burning in BC
Further west, a fire in the Lytton area has forced the evacuations of numerous properties, along with the closure of a stretch of Highway 1. According to DriveBC, Highway 1 between Hope and Lytton is closed in both directions due to the blaze.
The Kookipi Creek wildfire is burning south of the community, while the Stein Mountain wildfire burns to the northwest. The Village of Lytton, which was decimated by a wildfire in 2021, is also under evacuation alert.
In southeast B.C., officials are urging calm as numerous fires burn around the community of Invermere, B.C., with evacuation alerts in place for the Panorama Mountain resort.
In the Shuswap region, the Lower East Adams Lake fire continues to burn, with evacuation orders remaining in place there.
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