The Hullcar Mountain wildfire in the North Okanagan nearly doubled in size overnight, prompting evacuations and road closures.
BC Wildfire information officer Taylor Shantz said the wildfire grew from 380 hectares to 670 hectares overnight, as evening “fire behaviour” ramped up.
“It started showing ranks three and four behaviour so we started to see more candling and more fire at the canopies,” Shantz said.
Area residents were well aware of the changing behaviour, with multiple photos taken of the hillside lit up by flames.
A machine guard was constructed Tuesday, tying in the south and west flank, and they’re being reinforced with hose lay, Shantz said. Also, skimmers were focusing on cooling and holding the southeast flank and helicopters were working on the northeast flank while heavy equipment was moving in to continue guard construction.
Shantz said there are no structures affected as of yet, but BC Wildfire did make a recommendation for an evacuation order Tuesday night.
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In the township of Spallumcheen, that meant 58 properties were put on evacuation order and 60 properties on evacuation alert.
In the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, 17 properties were put on evacuation order, and about 75 properties were put on evacuation alert, primarily in the areas of Salmon River Road and Deep Creek Road.
“Those folks needed to move out if they were in the evacuation order area. The folks who are remaining in the alert area need to get prepared as we know the fire can move quickly,” Tracy Hughes, a representative of the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, said.
“It grew very significantly overnight…. You really want all those people to be on their guard, be making their grab-and-go bags and getting prepared. It’s an area with significant livestock so people can be moving their livestock out now, if they’re on alert and they should be doing that at this time.”
Drive BC reported early Wednesday that Salmon River Road was closed in both directions between Yankee Flats Road North and Yankee Flats Road South to everything but local traffic. A detour is in place through Yankee Flats Road.
In general, however, Hughes said it’s best if people who don’t need to be in the area simply stay away.
“We have had problems in the past couple of days, since the alert went in, with people going out to take a look, take photos, take video and it’s really been congesting that area and making it very frustrating for those residents, especially the ones who are trying to move out livestock,” she said.
“You just can’t move these big trucks. It’s a narrow road, it’s a curvy road. And if some looky-loo is stopping suddenly, for you to slam on your brakes with a horse trailer and animals in there is a real problem.”