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Province reminds B.C. residents to avoid wildfire zones over Labour Day long weekend

There are still 21 evacuation orders in place, affecting more than 3,700 properties and 77 evacuation alerts impacting just over 6,000 properties.
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A reader-submitted photo of the Inkaneep Creek wildfire from July 2021.

The cooler, wetter weather is helping firefighters on the lines of the White Rock Lake and Skaha Creek wildfires.

Still, it has been a tough fire season so far, with nearly three times the 10-year average of area burned.

Tuesday, the province gave an update on the toll to this point. Nearly 865,300 hectares have burned. For comparison, the yearly average over the past decade is 300,000 hectares.

The number of active fires is holding at around 250, and there are positive developments on two of the more active fires of note in the Okanagan.

A large planned ignition was completed last night on the White Rock Lake fire, hopefully shortening the time evacuated residents will have to wait to get back into their homes.

The cool, wet weather today and into tomorrow should help crews on the Skaha Creek fire, near Penticton.

“Conditions today are much cooler. ... This downturn in weather will allow our crews to make progress on containment of the Skaha Creek wildfire,” said Derek Williams, provincial wildfire co-ordination officer with the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS).

BCWS still has over 3,000 personnel deployed across the province, with 580 out-of-province resources and 110 aircraft.

British Columbians planning to travel over the long weekend are advised to check ahead.

“If you are going to travel for the long weekend, we’d like to ask people to make sure that they plan before they go, to avoid active fire areas, and areas directly impacted by evacuation orders and alerts. And to assist in that planning, we encourage people to check Emergency Info BC, bcwildfire.ca and DriveBC websites for the latest wildfire and travel information,” said Brendan Ralfs, director of response at Emergency Management BC.

There are still 21 evacuation orders in place, affecting more than 3,700 properties and 77 evacuation alerts impacting just over 6,000 properties.