UPDATE: Northeast Wildfires Prompt Evacuation Orders and Air Quality Statements

A pair of wildfires of note burning in the Northeast are prompting a number of evacuation orders and alerts.

Now covering over 24,000 hectares, the Battleship Mountain fire, west of Hudson’s Hope is easily the largest in the province right now.

That fire has forced the District of Hudson’s Hope to elevate an evacuation alert into an order, to go along with orders already in place to the west and north of the community.

That evac order is also covering the WAC Bennet and Peace Hydro dams, which combine to provide over a third of BC’s hydro.

There are no evacuation alerts or orders stemming from a second fire of note in the Prince George Fire Centre, covering 6,300 hectares at Bearhole Lake Park, southeast of Tumbler Ridge.

Smoke billowing into the air from those fires is also to blame for air quality statements currently in place for the North Peace and Cariboo south of Williams Lake.

There is one out of control fire burning in the Northwest, covering 330 hectares south of the Nechako Reservoir.