Two BC wildfires burn out of control across the southern Interior

KAMLOOPS, B.C. -- More than a dozen residents in British Columbia's southern Interior have been asked to evacuate their homes, as the 2018 wildfire season makes an aggressive start with two large blazes.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued evacuation orders for 14 properties and evacuation alerts for another 51 addresses Friday afternoon, because of the potential danger to life and health posed by a fire at Allie Lake.

The fire, about 55 kilometres northwest of Kamloops, more than doubled in size from Thursday to Friday afternoon and has burned through 21-square kilometres of bush, the B.C. WildfireService said.

Seventy-three firefighters are tackling the blaze with four helicopters, air tanker support and heavy machinery.

"It is still putting up quite a bit of smoke so it still will be visible to quite a few communities in the area," Nicole Bonnett with the BC Wildfire Service said Friday morning.

The fire is burning on the perimeter of a 2,000-square kilometre area that was scorched by B.C.'s largest wildfire of 2017. Bonnett said the new fire is separate from the one that destroyed forests, brush and buildings last summer.

The other out-of-control blaze has scorched more than four-square kilometres of timber on the steep side of Anderson Lake, west of Lillooet.

Two properties along the narrow and twisting Highline Road have been ordered evacuated and the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District has issued evacuation alerts for almost 30 other addresses.

Sixty-three firefighters have been dispatched to fight that fire near Xusum Creek.

Both fires are suspected to be human caused.

Just over 200 fires have been recorded since the season began on April 1 and the wildfire service website shows the fire risk for most of B.C. is now rated moderate to high, with several parts of the province rated at extreme risk.

A number of blazes larger than 10-square kilometres are burning north of Fort St. John and west of Fort Nelson in northeastern B.C., but they are not threatening any structures.

The wildfire service is making plans to fight some of those fires but Bonnett said others, especially those within provincial parks, will be left to burn themselves out.

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