Fire: thousands of evacuations, state of emergency in British Columbia

Saturday, July 8, 2017 11:35

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Saturday, July 8, 2017 11:35

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The government of British Columbia has declared a state of emergency because of the many fires that ravage the central and southern parts of the province, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of people.

“Given the current situation of forest fires and the expected increase of their activity, the province is taking this extraordinary measure of declaring a state of emergency for the entire province”, said late Friday Todd Stone, minister of Transportation of British Columbia and in charge of emergency situations, in a press release.

The activity of the fires is expected to increase due to a hot and dry province.

“The heat, combined with the warm air mass and dry of June, will increase the risk of fire on a good portion of southern British Columbia”, announced Saturday, Environment Canada, meteorological services of the country.

The department for the fight against the forest fires of British Columbia has identified 138 departures of traffic lights on the single day of Friday.

On this day, the inhabitants of the villages of Ashcroft, in which the hospital was closed as a precaution, and Cache Creek, located in the regional district of Thompson-Nicola, have been evacuated.

In the district of Kamloops, a hundred kilometers to the east of Ashcroft, more than 3600 people had to leave their homes. And thirty properties, north of Princeton, in the south of the province, have been evacuated in the night from Friday to Saturday.