Still no word on when evacuees can go home

KAMLOOPS, B.C. — Thousands of residents from Williams Lake, B.C., who hoped to be heading home soon after being displaced by wildfires nearly two weeks ago will have to be patient a while longer.

Hot, dry weather in the foreseeable future for southern parts of the province prompted officials to say Wednesday that the wildfire crisis will likely get worse through the summer.

Chief fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said crews are still monitoring the situation around Williams Lake but because of weather conditions, the B.C. Wildfire Service is likely to recommend a delay in lifting the evacuation order.

“We’re definitely going to want to wait and see in terms of what these fires are going to do, how they’re going to react to this weather,” he said.

The current level of dryness in the forests is weeks ahead of where it should be and more fires are expected to start in the days ahead, Skrepnek said.

Crews are “gearing up” as lightning and little to no precipitation creates “ideal conditions for fires to start and fires to spread quite quickly,” Skrepnek said.

Approximately 19,100 people remain displaced.

For the first time in days, a new evacuation order was issued by the Thompson-Nicola Regional District late Tuesday night for residents on a handful of properties northeast of Clinton, about 350 kilometres north of Vancouver.

The 615-square-kilometre wildfire has been threatening the region for nearly three weeks and already destroyed dozens of homes from Ashcroft north to Loon Lake, east of Clinton.

Fires have charred about 3,790 square kilometres of timber, bush and grassland in B.C. since April 1, and crews continue to try to bring more than 150 wildfires under control.