North Okanagan blaze more than doubles, prompting thousands of new evacuations

The Bradley Creek wildfire, located in B.C.’s North Okanagan, grew from roughly 10 square kilometres on Saturday to about 26 square kilometres by Sunday, according to the B.C. Wildfire Service. The surge prompted evacuation orders for communities along the northern shore of Okanagan Lake, including the Okanagan Indian Band reserve, Spallumcheen, and the Splatsin First Nation. Around midnight, the City of Armstrong issued an alert for 15 properties, and the Columbia Shuswap Regional District added an alert covering about 128 homes.

Further south, the Quilpituk Creek fire, discovered Saturday, led the Central Okanagan Regional District to order evacuations for 28 properties near Nahun and La Casa. In the east, the Wait Creek fire forced evacuation orders for roughly 972 dwellings across the Regional District of East Kootenay, with shelters set up at Parkland Middle School in Cranbrook. The Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness said a total of 42 evacuation orders and 40 alerts now affect about 8,500 properties province-wide, a sharp rise from the previous day. While cooler temperatures and higher humidity should reduce fire intensity, lingering drought conditions keep the area highly vulnerable to further ignition.