The number of active wildfires in British Columbia has leapt by about 10 following several days of hot, sunny weather.
BC Wildfire Service figures Thursday morning show 78 active blazes, up from 68 on Wednesday, with 16 new starts and eight fires declared out over the past 24 hours.
There are now 15 fires classified as burning out of control, up from four on Monday, including a cluster of new starts in the northwestern part of the Cariboo region.
The B.C. government has issued a statement reminding people of open-burning prohibitions across the province and campfire bans in the Coastal, Cariboo and Kamloops fire centres ahead of the Labour Day long weekend.
In the Okanagan, a fire sparked by a motorhome veering off the highway and crashing into a tree south of Peachland Tuesday night continues to be held at about 1.4 hectares.
The blaze had knocked out power for nearly 700 homes, an outage that stretched into Wednesday, but the BC Hydro website shows it has since been restored.
While cooler temperatures have returned to Metro Vancouver, with the regional district lifting a smog advisory for the Fraser Valley, heat warnings remain in effect for parts of the southern Interior along with inland sections of the north coast.
The weather office says temperatures reaching 34 to 38 C are expected in the Fraser Canyon and South Thompson, and temperatures of 29 C or higher are forecast to persist in the Terrace and Kitimat areas through tomorrow.
Environment Canada has lifted its heat warning for the central coast.
Daily maximum temperature records have been tumbling across B.C. since last weekend, with 13 areas recording new highs for Aug. 27.
They include Cache Creek, where the temperature of 39.5 C broke the previous record of 36.1 C set in 2017, and Kamloops, where the mercury hit 37 C, surpassing the earlier high of 35 C set in 1933.
It was 40.1 C in Lytton on Wednesday, 39.4 in Lillooet and 36.1 C in Clearwater, temperatures that set new daily records in those areas.
The high of 32.5 C in the northern community of Fort Nelson tied the previous daily record set in 2023.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
