David Luggi and his family were packed and ready to go at a moment's notice on Friday.
Their community of Stellako is on the western edge of Fraser Lake, just outside an evacuation order area, one of several in north-central B.C. west of Prince George, where hundreds of square kilometres of tinder-dry forest is burning.
One of those is the Shovel Lake fire just to the north of Fraser Lake and Stellako, where the B.C. Wildfire Service issued an extreme-fire-behaviour warning late Thursday because of expected high winds.
The Shovel Lake fire has burned 790 square kilometres, nearly 200 times the size of Stanley Park.
“It’s been a period of high anxiety. But we’re getting used to dealing with it,” said Luggi, a former chief of the Stellat’en First Nation.
He said many residents of Stellako — the elderly, people with health issues and people with young children — had already fled to Prince George, 160 kilometres to the west, where there is an evacuation centre set up.
Luggi said he will be staying put, waiting to see if the evacuation alert is boosted to an order. He figures he can be on the road with his trailer and family within 30 minutes.
On Friday morning, it was relatively clear with whitecaps visible on the lake, showing that winds were strong, he said. But in the days before there has been heavy smoke billowing off the Shovel Lake fire, creating dramatic smoke-cloud displays.
Luggi said that firefighters from the nearby communities of Fraser Lake and Nadleh Whut’en have joined with Stellako to create a fire brigade to protect the three communities.
In Fraser Lake, a camp has been set up for the firefighters fighting the blaze on the north side of Fraser Lake.
Luggi said he had never seen an August like this, with no rain, a time of year when usually temperatures are dropping, you can feel the coolness in the air and the leaves are close to starting dropping.
It has been another hot fire season in B.C. with a provincial state of emergency being declared on Wednesday.
Around the province, more than 1,800 fires have burned about 4,360 square kilometres, inching it closer to making it the third worst fire season since 1950. Last year, when 12,000 square kilometres burned, was the worst.
There are about 3,500 people fighting fires and supporting the effort, including firefighters from Mexico, New Zealand and Australia.
In Prince George on Friday, the smoke from wildfires had created an eerie darkness. People had woken up to a dusky morning that became darker. “It was surreal,” said B.C.’s chief fire information officer, Kevin Skrepnek, who was in Prince George on Friday.
The city activated its emergency operations centre at CN Centre a week ago and has already taken in more than 1,300 wildfire evacuees. Evacuation centres have also been established in Terrace, Kamloops and Nelson.
On Friday, Skrepnek said the biggest concern heading into the weekend and early next week was the continuing bone-dry conditions.
The potential for rain late next week in southeastern B.C. would also bring the possibility of lightning, said Skrepnek.
“We’re bracing for this situation to continue,” he said.
B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson implored residents who had been ordered to evacuate to do so. “It is an essential part of the firefighting effort,” he told reporters on a conference call.
Donaldson visited north-central B.C. on Friday, getting briefings on firefighting efforts, and also meeting with community leaders, including Stellat’en Nation chief Archie Patrick and Nadleh Whut’en chief Larry Nooski.
In southeast B.C., the City of Kimberley, a community of about 5,000, had been put on evacuation alert on Thursday.
Mayor Don McCormick said Friday wildfires were not immediately threatening Kimberley but that concerns had increased after winds picked up overnight, blowing thick smoke and ash into the community.
He said there had been a lot of smoke for the past six weeks.
“Last night, things got amped up a bit,” he said. “We’re trying to get people to stay calm. If we let the professionals do their job, we’ll be fine.”
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