Wildfire forces evacuation of festival near Princeton

Hundreds of partygoers at a festival near Princeton were evacuated Sunday night due to a nearby wildfire.

According to the BC Wildfire Service, the fire, near Rice Road just northwest of Princeton, was around one hectare in size when first discovered, and grew to over 15 hectares as of Monday morning.

Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne tells CityNews that because of the speed, there was a “tactical evacuation” of the area, which included residents and the nearby “Under the Stars” festival.

The festival, which was reportedly just a few kilometres away from the wildfire, had sold about 500 tickets, Coyne says, with somewhere between 200 and 500 people being evacuated overnight.

New fire west of Princeton. Picture taken from Coalmont #BCWildfire pic.twitter.com/dpfgtZKM1m

— Erik Dv (@erikdv) August 7, 2023

“The Tulameen Fire Department, along with support from the local RCMP, went door to door in the area to evacuate people,” Coyne said.

Coyne says the city activated a bus for anyone who wasn’t able to get out of the area on their own, with the last trip dropping back evacuees into the city around 1:30 a.m.

“Luckily we didn’t have to bring out too many,” he explained. “The rest of them, they all jumped in each other’s vehicles and they left. It was a very well-orchestrated evacuation, people were cooperative.”

Coyne says most of the festival goers were from out of town, and once finding a place to camp overnight, many of them headed off home this morning.

The Emergency Support Services were activated Sunday night, Coyne says, adding there’s only a handful of locals impacted by the evacuation order.

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“I’m always concerned when there is a fire close to town. It’s about 12 kilometers from town, and our fire chief is out there right now.

“But overall, BC wildfire has done a bang-up job on this fire, and they’ve got a number of people on it and air assets. And I’m told there’s more coming in from the Hope area right now,” Coyne said.

“I want to thank all of our emergency workers, they’ve done an amazing job and like always, gone above and beyond.”

Fire Information Officer Taylor Wallace with the Kamloops Fire Centre says as of Monday morning, 29 firefighters are responding to the blaze with the help of two helicopters and “multiple” air tankers.

The fire centre is anticipating cooler temperatures and increased humidity, Wallace says, after seeing lightning activity overnight.

“Last night we saw about 639 strikes of lightning throughout the Kamloops Fire Centre, so we’re continuing to ask folks to keep reporting wildfires or anything they see that they believe might be a wildfire,” she said.