Evacuation alert issued as out of control fire burns in southern B.C.

BC Wildfire Service Information Officer Cassidy Martin says there are 46 firefighting personnel working on the Grasshopper Mountain blaze, as well as three helicopters and air tankers supporting.

She says crews worked through the night, but on Wednesday they were seeing an elevated, visible, open flame surface fire with some pockets of more intense flames, with moderate growth.

“So (it’s) still not a huge fire behaviour situation, but with the winds in the area yesterday, it did get really smoky,” she says. “That can be concerning, but it was mainly the wind picking up the smoke.”

That update comes after fire fighters got their first test of the season on Tuesday with a blaze near West Kelowna that had temporarily forced about 350 people out of their homes.

The Kalamoir Park wildfire was downgraded to “being held” on Tuesday afternoon and the Central Okanagan regional emergency management centre downgraded the evacuation order a few hours later, allowing people to return home.

It was further downgraded to “under control” as of Wednesday and was listed as eight hectares in size.

Martin says the service is deferring to the West Kelowna Fire Department for details about the blaze, noting wildfire service responded in an assisting capacity.

She says 24 BC Wildfire Service personnel remain at the site on Wednesday to help the department by “looking for hot spots and making sure everything stays well within the boundaries.”

When asked about lessons learned as the season ramps up, Martin said the service is encouraging the public to download the BC Wildfire Service app, where they can report wildfires and include photos of the blaze.

“When our operations team and our crews are able to kind of see those photos beforehand, it’s really nice to see and help them make their operational decisions,” she says.

“I think it’s a great resource that the public can use and it really, really helps us.”

The wildfire service is reporting about 16 active fires burning across the province as of Wednesday.

Neal McLoughlin, superintendent for predictive services, told a Tuesday news conference that current drought patterns are worse compared with those recorded at the same time of year in the historic fire seasons of 2017, 2018 and 2021.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2026.

The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Evacuation alert issued as out of control fire burns in southern B.C.

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