Evacuation orders issued west of Kamloops due to growing wildfire activity

Evacuation orders have been put in place Tuesday after two wildfires west of Kamloops grew in size overnight.

The Cook’s Ferry Indian Band has issued an evacuation order for its Nicoelton reserve as two wildfires burn north of Spences Bridge, B.C.

The band issued the order Tuesday “in the interest of life and safety,” while it also put in place evacuation alerts for three more of its reserves.

The band says the Teit Creek and Shetland Creek wildfires, burning at 249 hectares and 285 hectares wide, respectively, pose an “imminent danger” to its Nicoelton reserve.

Both fires are deemed “out of control” by the BC Wildfire Service.

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Information Officer with the BCWS Taylor Coleman says the Teit Creek Wildfire has made the terrain inaccessible.

“It’s on a really steep slope, and there’s no road or state access route for ground crews,” she said. “So we haven’t had any crews on that fire, but there have been helicopters bucketing water on that fire, keeping fire behaviour cool.”

Coleman says they are assessing what could be achievable for ground crews and where it would be safe for them to operate.

She says the Teit Creek wildfire has not threatened any structures or communities.

For the Shetland Creek wildfire, Coleman says four helicopters are working to bucket and cool the fire behaviour.

“We’ll continue to have helicopters working on the Teit Creek wildfire as well as the Shetland Creek wildfire,” she said.

It’s unclear how many people are affected by the band’s evacuation order.

Meanwhile, a new wildfire was found in the Fraser Canyon Tuesday evening.

The fire, located about 16 kilometres north of Boston Bar, was displaying rank 3 fire behaviour, the BCWS said in a statement.

At the time of discovery, the fire was estimated to be about one hectare in size and was classified as out of control.