Total Displaced By BC Forest Fires Hits 40,000; Williams Lake Biggest Town Evacuated So Far
Aggressive wildfires have forced nearly 40,000 British Columbians from their homes early into the wildfire season, with strong wind gusts pushing flames across the Fraser River and threatening to choke off major highways.
The entire city of Williams Lake – which is located about six hours northeast of Vancouver and has a population of just over 10,000 – was ordered evacuated on Saturday evening. A little more than half those residents had left voluntarily during an evacuation alert, but the remaining thousands streamed south to Kamloops overnight, a drive that normally takes about three hours taking upward of eight or nine for some.
On Sunday, hundreds of people at a time wrapped around Kamloops’s Sandman Centre, a multipurpose arena, as a haze of smoke hung in the air. Outside, volunteers handed out coffee, pastries, food vouchers and pet supplies; inside, hundreds of cots lay row upon row, available to evacuees on a first-come, first-serve basis.
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Robert Turner, assistant deputy manager for the provincial agency, noted that while this is not unprecedented – B.C.’s 2003 wildfire season displaced around 50,000 people – this year’s fires span a larger geographic area. As well, it’s still early in the wildfire season. “The possible duration of this is different,” Mr. Turner said. “We have not yet reached those numbers but it is in many ways a much more complicated response because of the geographic scope.”
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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/thousands-of-williams-lake-wildfire-evacuees-arrive-in-kamloops/article35701794/
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