An out-of-control wildfire in northern B.C. has sparked an evacuation order for a nearby town and First Nation.
Issued Friday night by the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, the order is for Fort Nelson and the Fort Nelson First Nation.
Fort Nelson, with a population of around 3,000, is located four hours north of Fort St. John, where residents are being told to gather.
More information about the evacuation order is available online.
According to the BC Wildfire Service, the Parker Lake fire is burning alongside Highway 97, around 3.5 km west of Fort Nelson.
The fire is listed at 1,696 hectares and is deemed to be out of control.
BCWS says the fire is being driven by winds from the northwest and that “extreme fire behaviour and local conditions challenged suppression efforts as Rank 4 and 5 fire behaviour was displayed during (Friday afternoon).”
BCWS fire information officer Sarah Hall said the fire featured continuous candling on Friday – against a backdrop of dry conditions, above-seasonal temperatures and a prolonged drought.
“All of those factors together created extreme fire behaviour,” Hall told Global News. “Public safety is our top priority, so, working with the local municipalities, we recommended that (evacuation) order be put in place.”
Hall said cooler temperatures are expected for Saturday. Environment Canada is calling for a high of 19 C and an overnight low of 7 C.
Mainly sunny skies, with highs between 17 C and 22 C, are projected until Wednesday, when clouds and a 60 per cent chance of rain roll in.
Seventeen helicopters and a crew of 44 are battling the blaze.
The mayor of Fort Nelson, Rob Fraser, told Global News that the fire isn’t a holdover from last year, adding “We expected a windstorm to come through here; we got it.”
The mayor said a tree fell onto a power line around 12 kilometres northwest of the town, causing the fire, and “by the time our fire crews got there, it was several acres and with the 70 km/h winds that we had, it blew up to 80 hectares in a couple of hours.
“And so, we felt the need to move the community as quickly as possible because this fire was growing so rapidly.”
The mayor believes the vast majority of the town’s residents have evacuated.
DriveBC says that Highway 97 has been closed because of the fire.
B.C. Premier David Eby said he was “thinking of people evacuated from Fort Nelson and Fort Nelson First Nation as wildfire activity grows close to their communities.”
The wildfire is said to be affecting services in the Yukon, including internet and cell phone service.
The Yukon government says 911 services are not working, so ambulances were being stationed throughout Whitehorse.
Also, a wildfire around 65 km northwest of Fort Nelson has resulted in Highway 77 being shut down.
That closure is 137 km in length, and runs from the junction at Highway 97 just west of Fort Nelson to the Northwest Territories border.
— With files from the Canadian Press