VANCOUVER \u00a0\u2014\u00a0British Columbia declared a state of emergency Saturday as a fast-moving wildfire destroyed homes, trapped residents and forced more than 20,000 people to flee communities along Okanagan Lake in western Canada.<\/p>\n
Premier David Eby announced the emergency as more than 100 wildfires burned across the province, nearly half of them out of control in hot, windy weather and prolonged drought.<\/p>\n
The entire community of Summerland, home to about 12,000 people, was ordered evacuated overnight, along with about 8,000 people in and around nearby Peachland. Officials had not determined how many homes were destroyed.<\/p>\n
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it was investigating a possible wildfire death near Summerland, but hazardous conditions have prevented authorities from confirming the fatality.<\/p>\n
Eby said some residents became trapped and had to be rescued, while search-and-rescue crews continued looking behind the fire lines for anyone else who may have been caught.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know many families are facing an unimaginable day today,\u201d Eby said. \u201cPeople have lost their homes. And many people have been displaced. Others are waiting for news about loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cliff Chapman, director of wildfire operations for the BC Wildfire Service, said firefighting helicopters were diverted to rescue people who could no longer escape by road. He said the outcome would have been significantly worse without cooperation among agencies responding to the fire.<\/p>\n
The Bald Range wildfire, first reported Friday evening, grew to about 19 square miles within hours, overwhelming the smaller community of Faulder and covering the 9 miles to Summerland at extraordinary speed.<\/p>\n
Chapman described fire conditions across British Columbia as \u201cexplosive\u201d and warned that other communities could face fires similar to the one that forced the evacuation of Summerland.<\/p>\n
British Columbia Emergency Management Minister Kelly Greene said the state of emergency gives the province additional powers, including the ability to restrict travel and secure accommodations for evacuees that might otherwise be unavailable.<\/p>\n
Erick Thompson, an emergency official with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen, called it one of the \u201cquickest-moving, fastest-growing\u201d wildfires the region had experienced.<\/p>\n
Thompson eventually had to abandon the emergency operations center and evacuate his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to leave the EOC to come and get my family to leave this area. We\u2019re heading south,\u201d he said in a video posted early Saturday from his vehicle as traffic backed up around him.<\/p>\n
Canada has endured increasingly destructive wildfire seasons in recent years, forcing mass evacuations and repeatedly sending smoke across large parts of Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n
Videos posted on social media appeared to show multiple homes burning as residents fled along roads with flames on both sides.<\/p>\n
Homeowner Kerry Gold and her husband, Mike Elsinga, fled around 12:30 a.m. after watching flames spread beyond nearby mountains.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s scary. It\u2019s moving fast,\u201d Gold said.<\/p>\n
The couple, who recently moved from Vancouver, had packed bags, prepared a carrier for their cat and planned to help a disabled friend evacuate.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to stay here and protect your home, but you also don\u2019t want to get caught in it,\u201d Elsinga said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u00a0\u2014\u00a0British Columbia declared a state of emergency Saturday as a fast-moving wildfire destroyed homes, trapped residents and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":990234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[692,1582,276,718,3534,397086,21380,316,2961,94710,224,5337,1408,3546,57926,290,397085,989,176213,11003],"class_list":["post-990233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-community","tag-emergency","tag-erick-thompson","tag-flame","tag-home","tag-la","tag-large-part","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-official","tag-people","tag-square-mile","tag-state","tag-summerland","tag-video","tag-western-canada","tag-wildfire"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117063325549049812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/990234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}