Antler Creek Wildfire explodes in size overnight

The BC Wildfire Service says a wildfire of note near Barkerville blew up in size overnight.

The service says the Antler Creek Wildfire is considered “out-of-control” and sits at 14,283 hectares as of Tuesday, almost five times bigger than Monday night.

Evacuation orders are still in place for the Barkerville, Wells and Bowron Lake park areas.

Information Officer with the Cariboo Fire Centre Paula Walbauer says poor visibility made fighting the wildfire harder on crews Monday.

“We experienced quite a bit of smoke in the area, and were unable to do any aerial operations yesterday due to the smoke and poor visibility,” she said.

Walbauer says on Tuesday, skies were clearer and they were able to use their resources to accurately map the perimeter of the fire.

“That is why you’ve seen that growth that looked quite extensive for one day, but really was just there, (we were) able to map more accurately (now),” she confirmed.

The officer says crews had to be pulled off of the wildfires for their safety reasons on Monday. On Tuesday she says there are about 100 firefighters on the Groundhog Complex working several fires in the area.

“We have 10 pieces of heavy equipment, eight helicopters and a management team which has taken over at Antler Creek,” she said.

Walbauer says structure protection has been initiated at Barkerville and Wells.

The suspected cause of this wildfire was lightning.

-With files from Anthony Atanasov.