As the third-worst fire season in B.C.’s history continues, more than 820 fires have scorched about 426,000 hectares since April.
Officials are estimating about 6,000 people are still displaced due to evacuation orders.
MAP: Where the wildfires are burning around B.C.
Thousands of fire personnel are working to battle the flames around the province, with about 750 of them coming from outside B.C.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in B.C. for a first-hand look at the wildfires.
He is in Williams Lake with B.C. Premier John Horgan and several federal cabinet ministers.
WATCH: A resident in Clinton, B.C. shared video Saturday showing the sunset and a wildfire near the town combining to create a smoky pink sky.
The politicians met with Canadian Armed forces and RCMP members. Trudeau thanked the men and women working on the front lines of the fires.
“I am, as I always am, impressed by the caliber of the folks on the ground responding, but I do have to mention it, the extraordinary connection between different levels of government, municipal government, provincial government, at a federal level, Indigenous leadership, all the various agencies and actors involved in this are working together and that something, is quite frankly reassuring.”
They also visited a fire centre co-ordinating responses to the blazes, and will have an aerial tour of fire zones in the region.
Residents of Williams Lake have been returning home for the past few days after being ordered to leave more than two weeks ago.
Others in the region remain out of their homes after a flurry of evacuation orders were issued late Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
Get breaking National news
Seventy-five kilometres south of 100 Mile House, residents of the village of Clinton and surrounding areas were forced from their homes because of the flames were “rapidly moving.”
The Cariboo Regional District has also issued an expanded evacuation order for the Clisbako area, about 100 kilometres west of Quesnel. It also issued an evacuation alert for a region south of Highway 24, north of the Green Lake area that is under an evacuation order.
Hot weather expected
A heat wave is set to hit parts of B.C. this week and temperature records in B.C.’s South Coast are expected to be broken.
Fire officials are concerned the extreme dry heat could fuel more fires across the region.
Environment Canada says daily temperature records from Tuesday to Thursday will likely be broken in many communities, along with all-time records for the month of August.
For example, the highest August temperature ever recorded at Abbotsford is 36.3 C and the forecast for Thursday is 35 C.
-With files from Jon Azpiri
Comments