Thunderstorms push number of active wildfires in B.C. to nearly 420
CBC
The latest on the wildfires:
The B.C. Wildfire Service says thunderstorms over the long weekend caused a spike in fire activity across the province, pushing the total number of active wildfires past 400.
The service said there were 416 active fires as of Tuesday, including 34 new starts in the past 24 hours. Sixteen of the total are fires of note.
"At this time of year, it's pretty typical to see an increase in starts like that over a short period of time, just given we're seeing lots of lightning activity across the province," said fire information officer Erika Berg.
"Fire season isn't over yet, that's for sure."
The Prince George Fire Centre, which roughly spans the province's northeast quarter, still has the most fires at 143, followed by the Southeast Fire Centre at 86, the Northwest at 75, the Kamloops and Coastal Fire Centres at 43 and the Cariboo at 26.
The largest wildfire recorded in provincial history, the Donnie Creek fire, now stands at 5,831 square kilometres in size — an area more than double the size of Metro Vancouver.
As of Monday, more properties in the B.C. Interior are on evacuation alert due to wildfires near Adams Lake.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District said 85 addressed properties are on alert due to the Bush Creek East wildfire.
The regional district has also closed a boat launch to keep recreational boaters off the water so aircraft can work unimpeded as blazes burn on both sides of the lake. Conservation officers and the RCMP are patrolling to make sure boaters aren't getting in the way.
Both the Thompson-Nicola and the Columbia Shuswap regional districts have evacuation orders in place for wildfires burning on opposite sides of Adams Lake — the Lower East Adams Lake and Bush Creek East fires.
WATCH | Wildfire in southern Interior leads to festival evacuation:
Meanwhile, a wildfire burning near Princeton, B.C., forced the evacuation of a music festival attended as many as 1,000 people over the long weekend.
The Rice Road wildfire, roughly 11 kilometres northwest of Princeton, prompted RCMP and fire crews to evacuate the Under the Stars Music Festival on Sunday.
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.