Officials have significantly expanded evacuation orders covering the Village of Clinton, B.C., and surrounding areas as a pair of nearby wildfires grow.
The orders cover the village itself, which is home to about 650 people, along with more than 400 properties to the southwest and north of the community.
“Gather your family and, if you have room, take a neighbour or someone needing transportation. Do not use more vehicles than you need to,” the village said in a social media post.
Highway 97 is closed for nine kilometres between Clinton Cemetery Road and Mound Road to facilitate the evacuation.
I’m gonna lose my house any minute’: Mayor
Clinton Mayor Roland Stanke said the situation in the community of several hundred residents was “extremely bad.”
“I’m gonna lose my house any minute. It’s horrible,” he said in a brief interview with the Canadian Press late Friday.
Stanke said he got out in the afternoon and had been watching the fires advance via cameras set up at his home, saying that what he saw was bad.
2 fast-growing fires threatening the community
To the southwest of Clinton, the Pear Lake wildfire — one of several fires in the region that together make up the Big Bar fire complex — has grown to approximately 44.7 square kilometres.
The B.C. Wildfire Service said Friday afternoon that winds gusting up to 35 km/h from the southwest had pushed the fire across Kelly Lake Road in multiple places.
To the north of the community, the Fiftynine Creek wildfire continues to burn out of control, and has grown to 167.2 square kilometres in size, prompting evacuation orders and alerts of its own.
The wildfire service said it pulled crews fighting that fire back from the front lines on Friday afternoon for safety reasons.
The service said winds from the west and northwest led to aggressive Rank 5 fire behaviour, and had pushed the fire past containment efforts on its southwest flank.
On Friday morning, the Village of Clinton, located around 100 kilometres northwest of Kamloops, upgraded an existing evacuation alert to an evacuation order after the Pear Lake fire expanded eastward overnight.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) also expanded evacuation orders throughout the day multiple times.
About 130 properties, mostly to the southwest of Clinton, that are threatened by the Pear Lake fire have been ordered to evacuate.
Another 280 properties north of the village, including the Fill, Chasm and Jesmond areas, that are threatened by the Fiftynine Creek fire are also under an active evacuation order.
New evacuation alerts are also in place for both the Pear Lake and Fiftynine Creek fires, the latter of which includes the community of 70 Mile House.
‘Stay calm. Get organized’
Clinton Mayor Stanke said the village ordered the evacuation after a briefing with wildfire officials raised safety concerns.
“Simply because of the Pear Lake wildfire becoming more aggressive than it had been in the past, and the Fiftynine Creek fire that is up by Big Bar, it is heading towards the highway up north,” he told CBC News.
“There’s some concerns that the two of them may merge.”
Kamloops Search and Rescue said it had deployed a 12-member team to help deliver evacuation notices.
Evacuees are being directed to a reception centre in Kamloops at the McArthur Island Sport and Events Centre.
“Stay calm. Get organized. This is our third rodeo, so trust us,” Stanke said, referencing prior wildfire evacuations in 2009 and 2017.
“We have very competent, well-trained staff. So just take your direction and just go with the flow.”
Couple sold property same day
It was an emotional Friday for Bernice Weihs-Anderson, a longtime Clintonite and former 12-year member of the village’s volunteer fire department.
After being diagnosed with asthma as an adult, Weihs-Anderson and her husband made the difficult decision to move somewhere less smoky on her doctor’s advice.
It took nearly two years to sell their hobby farm, with word of the deal closing only arriving on Friday — the couple had been due to move out Friday night.
Before the order to evacuate came down, Weihs-Anderson had been spending the morning going the “extra mile” to fire-proof the property for the new owners.
She told CBC News the prospect of leaving her community during a crisis was heartbreaking.
“It makes you feel a bit like a traitor that I wasn’t able to stay,” she said.
“The best thing about Clinton is the people, there are so many wonderful people and so we have both been really, really sad about that process and saying goodbye.”
As of Friday, there were 118 active fires across British Columbia, half of them classified as out of control.
Provincewide, about 1,200 properties were under evacuation order and another 6,400 were under an alert, according to the province.
