British Columbia is expected to experience sustained wildfire activity in August and September, especially in the southern regions, with a long-term forecast of hot and dry weather.
Shortly after the wildfire forecast arrived Thursday, the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional District updated an evacuation order to include all residents of the community of Olalla, about 25 miles south of Penticton. It was later expanded to include an additional 20 properties south of Ollala.
The district also issued evacuation alerts for Keremeos village and Keremeos rural areas.
More than 300 properties had previously been evacuated as the wildfire consumed more than 16 square miles of rugged terrain in the Penticton area.
“People are worried about their paths to safety,” said Tim Roberts, regional director for the Olalla area. “It’s an ever-evolving and rapidly changing event.”
Fire crews struggled to protect homes in the Olalla area overnight, said Bryan Zandberg, an information officer with the wildfire service.
“There is still growth going on,” he said. “It’s still a wildfire out of control.”
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Neal McLoughlin, the BC Wildfire Service’s predictive services superintendent, said wildfire activity is now forecast to shift from the north of the province to southern areas.
He said there were 149 new wildfires in BC over the past week and a similar number of fires are expected through August, but those weekly fire counts are below normal, with counts ranging from 50 to 700 in the last 20 years.
“We expect above-average temperatures, near-normal precipitation amounts across most of BC in August and early September, and then a gradual return to seasonal temperatures by October,” McLoughlin said. “We anticipate a similar number of fire starts through August as we saw in the latter part of July.”
Hot, dry August to sustain wildfires, especially in southern #BC, forecast says. #BCWildfires #Wildfires
McLoughlin said BC’s cool, wet spring and late snowmelt have contributed to fewer large wildfires this year, so far.
Forestry Minister Katrine Conroy told a monthly fire forecast briefing that there are 91 active wildfires in BC, with six of them being considered notable fires, including fires outside of Lytton and near Penticton.
She said that 528 forest fires this year have burned 220 square kilometers.
“Just by comparison, at the same time last year we had over 1,300 fires burning and 25 times the acres,” Conroy said.
BC experienced record wildfires in 2017 when more than 12,000 square kilometers burned, and in 2018 when 13,500 square kilometers burned.
The town of Lytton in Fraser Canyon was largely destroyed by a wildfire in June 2021 after temperatures reached an all-time national record high of 49.6 C.
Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said this year’s bushfire activity has resulted in nearly 400 property evacuation orders and 500 evacuation alerts, while at the same time last year there were 4,300 evacuation orders and 21,000 alerts.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 4, 2022.