Residents of the B.C. Interior village of Clinton are facing an anxious wait to discover the fate of their community after an advancing wildfire forced them to flee.
The community was ordered to evacuate on Friday as flames swept toward it late in the afternoon.
Mayor Roland Stanke said the situation in the community of several hundred residents, about 350 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, was “extremely bad.”
He said in an interview late Friday that he had been watching the fires from a camera set up at his home, which he expected to lose to the flames.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued an evacuation expansion overnight, along Highway 97, due to the Pear Lake wildfire. Officials say 12 properties have been added to the evacuation order, while 107 properties have been added to the alert.
An approaching cold front could bring increased winds, potentially complicating efforts to combat the Clinton fires, which are among about 120 wildfires burning across British Columbia.
The BC Wildfire Service says the stronger winds could last several days and have already been fanning the Big Bar Complex of fires threatening Clinton in the southern Interior.
The service says strong winds are also expected for the Bootleg Complex wildfires that have put the City of Kimberly in the southeast on evacuation alert, while similar strong winds have worsened fires burning near Boston Bar in the Fraser Canyon.
