“Not out of the woods yet,” BC Wildfire Service warns of very dynamic fire situations

Over 35,000 lightning strikes since Wednesday have sparked 65 new wildfires across B.C., prompting evacuations and a state of emergency near Cameron Lake.

ens of thousands of lightning strikes across British Columbia since Wednesday have created “a very dynamic” wildfire situation, with more than half the current fires started since the storms.

Emelie Peacock, an information officer with the BC Wildfire Service, said a week of dry and hot weather combined with lightning led to many new fire starts.

Since Wednesday, more than 35,000 lightning strikes were recorded across the province, Peacock said.

Severe thunderstorm watches remained in place on Friday for a large swatch of the southern Interior and stretching to locations into the northeast. Above-seasonal temperatures, especially in the southern Interior, roasted many parts of the province earlier in the week, Peacock said.

“So, we’ve certainly seen the southern parts of the province really come on board later in the season than we’re used to, but the southern parts of the province are now fully in wildfire season,” she said in an interview Friday.

The lightning storms set off 65 new fires between Thursday and Friday, with some of them burning close to communities in the Interior, in the Fraser Canyon and on the Vancouver Island. There are about 130 active wildfires burning in the province.

While she said the cooling trend and showers “are going to help us out,” the province isn’t “completely out of the woods yet.”

“We will likely see new wildfire starts, what we call holdover lightning fires,” said Peacock, adding the holdover fires usually take several days to become visible.