B.C. down to three wildfires of note as Brunswick Creek removed from list

British Columbia is down to three wildfires that warrant attention, with one blaze in the Fraser Canyon now deemed less of a concern. The Brunswick Creek fire, which has been burning uncontrollably, will no longer be considered a notable fire, leaving only three others in the province. This change is attributed to the reduced threat of the Brunswick Creek blaze spreading and the downgrading of evacuation orders.

The BC Wildfire Service attributes the status change to the blaze's continued westward movement along the Fraser Canyon, approximately 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. Incident commander Victor Teoh, an Australian expert overseeing both the Brunswick and Ainslie Creek fires, reported that crews are capitalizing on cooler conditions to effectively manage the more active areas of the complex fire that covers nearly 770 square kilometres.

Despite the reduction in concern over the Brunswick Creek fire, crews remain on alert, as hot and dry conditions are forecasted to return to much of British Columbia this week. The service is strategically positioning crews to respond to any new ignitions from lightning strikes predicted in the forecast.

Currently, there are 160 active wildfires in the province, down from a peak of 180 following a storm that produced 11,000 lightning strikes over the weekend. The two remaining wildfires of note are the Ainslie Creek blaze and the Pear Lake fire in the Cariboo region. A separate evacuation alert covers about 280 properties in the Nicola Valley, while 61 properties along Highway 5 southwest of Merritt face an evacuation order.

In the south Cariboo, the Village of Clinton has lifted an evacuation alert for most of the community but maintains the alert for some properties due to the risk of flooding from the massive Pear Lake fire. Meanwhile, the Bald Range fire, which forced about 20,000 residents to evacuate and destroyed around 150 structures in the south Okanagan, remains the third fire of note, though its growth has slowed.

A yellow-level air quality warning once covered the Fraser Canyon to Penticton, Kamloops, and the Chilcotin region, but Environment Canada has lifted it, though elevated levels of fine particulate matter persist in the eastern Fraser Valley.