More than 20,000 people placed on evacuation alert due to wildfire near Fort St. John, B.C.

Advancing wildfires in northeastern B.C. have more than 20,000 people prepared to leave their homes at a moment's notice.

The entire municipality of Fort St. John has been placed on evacuation alert due to advancing wildfires in the area.

An alert means that people do not need to leave their homes but should be prepared to do so at a moment's notice.

The alert was issued at 2:30 p.m. Pacific due to the Stoddart Creek Wildfire, which is classified as out of control and is estimated to cover 180 square kilometres (18,000 hectares) as of noon Monday. It is one of two large fires burning northwest of Fort St. John, along with the Red Creek fire.

Highway 97 has also been closed  27 kilometres north of the city due to the blaze, with fire information officer Hannah Swift saying that the Stoddart Creek fire is burning on either side of the road.

Swift says that the B.C. Wildfires Service is tracking a cold dry front that is moving south, and is likely to cause a drastic shift in the wind direction — where winds were once blowing from the south-southwest, they are soon expected to start blowing from the north, meaning the fire could spread south toward Fort St. John.

"[The winds] are going to be sustained 25 to 40 kilometres per hour, and we're looking at gusts upwards of 60 kilometres an hour," she said. "This is a huge heads up for us. It's going to bring an enormous amount of smoke to the area all the way down to Prince George.

"With that wind and the growth that we're we're projecting, we're likely going to be unable to keep crews on the wildfires, we're going to have to remove them because it won't be safe for them to work adjacent to these fires."

At 7:15 p.m. Monday, the B.C. WIldfire Service tweeted that crews had withdrawn from fighting the Stoddart Creek and Red Creek fires due to "aggressive fire behaviour and resulting smoke and poor visibility," with structure protection personnel set to work through the night to secure properties southeast of the two blazes.

Fort St. John, approximately 600 kilometres northwest of Edmonton and 1,200 kilometres north of Vancouver, is the second largest municipality in northern B.C., following Prince George, 400 kilometres away.

Should the alert be upgraded to an order, it would be one of the largest single evacuation orders due to wildfires in B.C., with Fort St. John home to roughly twice as many people as the community of Williams Lake, which was evacuated due to wildfires in 2017.

Several other evacuation orders and alerts are already in place due to wildfires burning in the region.

The Peace River Regional District says 1,800 properties are on evacuation order due to the Red Creek and Stoddart Creek fires, with a further 3,100 on evacuation alert.

An evacuation alert means residents should prepare to evacuate their homes, possibly with little to no notice. An evacuation order means a resident should leave immediately.