BC Wildfire Services welcomes first wave of support

London Drugs has delivered hundreds of community comfort kits to the evacuation centres in Kamloops and Prince George and more supplies are ready to be deployed as needed.

More than 180 fires were burning, many considered out of control, as the B.C. government declared a provincewide state of emergency to co-ordinate the crisis response.

“The only fire west of the Fraser River is zero per cent contained officially”.

Some residents had returned home after fleeing the flames in the grassy foothills of the Sierra Nevada, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of Sacramento, but thousands remained evacuated as the fire entered its fifth day.

The BC Wildfire Service says at least 225 wildfires have burned through more than 320-square kilometres of timber, bush and grassland.

The area burning is southeast of Oroville, near where 200,000 residents downstream from the 770-foot-high Oroville Dam were briefly evacuated in February when the structure’s spillways began crumbling.

Brooklyn Complex fire: The wildfire burning in the Tonto National Forest and the Agua Fria National Monument has been upgraded to a complex fire, incorporating two lightning-caused fires in the area.

On Tuesday one of the most unsafe blazes – the Whittier Fire in Santa Barbara in coastal Southern California – had spread to 11,281 acres with 48% of the blaze contained, according to Cal Fire. The blaze has been contained, except for a portion that continues to burn in rugged, steep terrain.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Pam Temmermand tells the Mercury News the fire has burned at least 20 acres.

According to the BC Wildfire Service’s latest estimate, there are now 219 fires burning across the province with 35 new ones starting yesterday.

Zaniboni says he expects containment to go up when new numbers are announced at a morning briefing.

One of the largest fires is near Ashcroft in the southern part of the district. However that year’s major fires didn’t kick off until well into August, she said, as did the destructive 1992 blazes that followed a drought that started five years earlier.

BC Hydro crews on Vancouver Island have been pulled away to assist with the wildfire situation in B.C.’s Interior instead. Instead, they were focused on protecting structures while battling the fire in hot, sometimes windy conditions. No injuries or deaths have been reported, and provincial officials say they don’t know the extent of the damage as of yet.

No new evacuation orders were issued last night – marking the first quiet night since the blazes were sparked last week, but two new evacuation alerts were issued yesterday for the Tatelkuz Lake area and the 100 Mile Fringe Southwest Davis Road Area.