Prince George, B.C. – Wildfires remain a concern in the Peace region. 

45 have been sparked since Monday, and the largest, located on Beatton Airport Road 45 km north of Fort St. John, has grown from 4,500 hectares last night to roughly 5,500 today.

“Resources are being sent to this incident,” says Amanda Reynolds of the Prince George Fire Centre. “The Beatton Airport Road is temporarily closed for at least 72 hours and an evacuation alert is in effect.”

She say there are five other fires of note in the area including:

– The Charlie Lake Fire which is estimated at 250 hectares though Reynolds notes they hope it will be moving into the mop-up stage today. The Peace River Regional District (PRRD) has issued downgraded the evacuation order to an evacuation alert related to this fire.

– The South Taylor Hill fire, which is located south of the community of Taylor, is estimated at 850 hectares. “We have crews working on the fire and I believe it will be in full mop-up stage soon” says Reynolds. The PRRD rescinded the evacuation order that was in place because of this fire this morning and replaced it with an evacuation alert.

– The Attachie fire, which is located 35 kms west of Fort St. John, along Highway 29, is estimated at 500 hectares in size. Travel advisories have been issued along Highway 29.

– The Hudson’s Hope fire, which is located 4 km northwest of Hudson’s Hope, is estimated at 300 hectares in size.

– The Baldonnel fire, which is located five km east of the community of Baldonnel, is estimated at 420 hectares in size. An evacuation order for this area was rescinded this morning and replaced with an evacuation alert.

“At this time crews are making progress. We had a successful day yesterday and we are continuing that today and we are waiting for more resources to come in at this time,” says Reynolds, who says favourable weather conditions should arrive by the weekend.

“The forecasted weather for the next couple of days is still calling for warm and dry weather with light winds which are supposed to gust tomorrow afternoon. But after that we should see scattered showers for much of the Peace region.”

Also of note, effective noon today, all Category 2 and Category 3 open burning bans went into effect though campfires are still allowed.

This prohibition applies to all BC Parks, Crown lands and private lands, but does not apply within the boundaries of a local government that has forest fire prevention bylaws in place and is serviced by a fire department.

For example there is still no open burning ban in effect in the City of Prince George.

Many local roads and highways have been affected by these fires and associated smoke. For up-to-date information on current road closures, visit: www.drivebc.ca