Last night in NE British Columbia, 3000 residents of Fort Nelson and the nearby First Nation of Fort Nelson and Prophet River First Nations were ordered to evacuate their homes after a fast-moving wildfire advanced on the localities. The blaze started yesterday afternoon seven and a half miles from Fort Nelson. Residents with vehicles were asked to take those with no transportation options to consider taking them with them.
The Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) and the Fort Nelson First Nation advised residents to take the Alaskan Highway south, a four-hundred-long mile single-lane highway, to avoid fires to the north. Flames blocked the northern route close to the Yukon border.
There are three wildfires in the region. CBC writes:
Rob Fraser, mayor of the NRRM, said the fire started when high winds blew a tree over and it fell onto a power line, causing it to catch fire.
"And then by the time our firefighters were able to get down there, the wind had whipped this up into a fire that they weren't able to handle with the apparatus that we had," Fraser told CBC News on Friday night.
The fire comes the day after two sleeper fires from 2023 reignited in the area, prompting an evacuation alert and the deployment of crews to the area.
The Nogah Creek and Patry Creek wildfires, both near Fort Nelson went underground for the winter. They became what's known as sleeper fires — or more menacingly, zombie fires.
This spring, they both reignited after the snow melted and the ground thawed, explained Pedro Roldan-Delgado, an information officer for the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS).
Wind this weekend may exceed 70 kilometres per hour, and could shift direction rapidly, according to the BCWS. This creates the potential for extreme fire behaviour at both sites.
The part of Canada’s snowpack is at 66 percent; it should be 90 percent for this time of year. Drought, high winds, and high temperatures are fanning the flames. It’s only May; expect the unexpected this summer.
Fires were burning near Fort Nelson in December of 2023.
A wildfire in Alberta also started on Friday.