The wildfire situation in British Columbia has calmed over the past 24 hours, but hundreds of homes remain under evacuation orders in the Central Kootenay region as anxious residents hope for the best.
Video from New Denver, where some of the Silverton evacuees are staying, showed a wall of smoke from the wildfire filling the air and blocking views of the village.
“The smoke has been pretty bad for the last week. The smoke is so thick, people are coughing,” Silverton Mayor Tanya Gordon said.
The last reported Aylwin Creek fire, burning a few kilometres from Silverton, had forced evacuations of residents in the area, but not everyone has evacuated, the mayor said.
“There seems to be some hesitation in backing out,” the mayor said.
“I think there are a lot of people out there who feel like they don’t have anyone to protect their property, but they can feel safe knowing that fire departments from all over British Columbia are here,” she explained.
“The reason we ask people to evacuate is based on concerns for their safety, concerns for the safety of our firefighters and also the operational need to remove people from the area from time to time so that we can operate effectively,” said Dan Seguin, director of the RDCK Emergency Operations Center.
Seguin said there were numerous wildfires burning in the area, and about 555 homes had been ordered to evacuate and more than 1,000 were on evacuation alert.
“It’s tragic to watch,” Gordon said.
“We live in a beautiful area and I’m very scared of what’s going to happen next,” she added.
Meanwhile, near Golden, where up to six homes have burned this week, officials said the wildfire is not spreading as much.
There are currently more than 400 wildfires burning in British Columbia, more than half of which are out of control, including the Shetland Creek Fire near Spence’s Bridge.
Thompson-Nicola Regional District Chief Tricia Thorpe flew over the fire scene on Thursday.
“If you look from the air you can see the intensity of it. Everything is completely charred,” she said.
But she said firefighters were working hard to put out the flames.
“You can see the BC Wildfire Service out there providing security for miles around,” she said.
The fire has grown to over 23,000 hectares and remains out of control.
