Highway 5 is a 543 km (337 mi) north–south route in southern British Columbia, Canada. Highway 5 connects the southern Trans-Canada route with the northern Trans-Canada/Yellowhead route, providing the shortest land connection between Vancouver and Edmonton. Despite the entire route being signed as part of the Yellowhead Highway, the portion of Highway 5 south of Kamloops is also known as the Coquihalla Highway, while the northern portion is known as the Southern Yellowhead Highway. The Coquihalla section was a toll road until 2008.
Lytton is a village of about 250 residents in southern British Columbia, Canada, on the east side of the Fraser River and primarily the south side of the Thompson River, where it flows southwesterly into the Fraser. The community includes the Village of Lytton and the surrounding community of the Lytton First Nation, whose name for the place is Camchin, also spelled Kumsheen.
The Chilcotin River /tʃɪlˈkoʊtɪn/ located in Southern British Columbia, Canada is a 241 km (150 mi) long tributary of the Fraser River. The name Chilcotin comes from Tŝilhqot’in, meaning "ochre river people," where ochre refers to the mineral used by Tŝilhqot’in Nation and other Indigenous communities as a base for paint or dye. The Chilcotin River, Chilko River and Lake, and Taseko River and Lake make up the Chilcotin River watershed. This 19,200 km2 (7,400 sq mi) watershed drains the Chilcotin Plateau which reaches north to south from the Nechako Plateau to Bridge River county and east to west from Fraser River to the Coast Mountains. It is also one of twelve watersheds that make up the Fraser River Basin. Made up of seven major tributaries, Chilcotin River starts northeast of Itcha Mountain, flowing southeast until it joins the Fraser River south of Williams Lake, 22 km (14 mi) upstream from Gang Ranch.
Boston Bar is an unincorporated community in the Fraser Canyon of the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Barriere is a district municipality in central British Columbia, Canada, located 66 km (41 mi) north of the larger city of Kamloops on Highway 5. It is situated at the confluence of the Barrière River and North Thompson Rivers in the Central North Thompson Valley.
The cumulonimbus flammagenitus cloud (CbFg), also known as the pyrocumulonimbus cloud, is a type of cumulonimbus cloud that forms above a source of heat, such as a wildfire or volcanic eruption, and may sometimes even extinguish the fire that formed it. It is the most extreme manifestation of a flammagenitus cloud. According to the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology, a flammagenitus is "a cumulus cloud formed by a rising thermal from a fire, or enhanced by buoyant plume emissions from an industrial combustion process."
David Robert Patrick Eby is a Canadian politician and lawyer who has been serving as the 37th and current premier of British Columbia since November 18, 2022, and has been serving as the leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (NDP) since October 21, 2022. A member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Eby has represented the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey since 2013. From 2017 to 2022, he served in the John Horgan cabinet as attorney general.
In the hot dry summer of 2003, a fire began to burn in the North Thompson Valley which destroyed numerous homes and businesses. This wildfire started when Mike Barre threw his cigarette butt into the grass on his property in McLure BC. The fire resulted in the loss of 72 houses, 9 businesses, and 180 jobs in the North Thompson Valley. The fire cost $31.1 million CAD to extinguish and caused an additional $8.2 million CAD in property damage. Provincial court Judge Sundhu sentenced Mike Barre to pay a $3000 CAD fine. Barre could have been sentenced to a $1-million fine and as much as three years in prison.
Loon Lake is a 6.936 km2 (2.678 sq mi) lake north of Cache Creek in British Columbia, Canada, and is part of the "Land of Hidden Waters".
On July 6, 2017, a two-hectare wildfire began west of 100 Mile House, British Columbia, Canada marking the beginning of the record-breaking 2017 wildfire season in British Columbia. On July 7, 56 new fires started throughout British Columbia (BC) leading to several evacuation alerts, orders and the declaration of a provincial state of emergency by the Government of British Columbia. By September 12, 158 fires were burning throughout the province. A total of 12,161 square kilometres had burned by the end of the 2017 fire season, the largest total area burned in a fire season in recorded history. This record was broken the following year, with five of BC's worst 10 fire seasons occurring since 2010. However, the 2017 fire season was also notable for the largest number of total evacuees in a fire season, as well as for the largest single fire ever in British Columbia. Research indicates that human-caused climate change played a significant role in the fires.
By the end of June 2018, there had been more than 560 wildfires in British Columbia.
The 2019 Alberta wildfires have been described by NASA as part of an extreme fire season in the province. In 2019 there were a total of 803,393.32 hectares, which is over 3.5 times more land area burned than in the five-year average burned. The five year average is 747 fires destroying 146,360.08 hectares. There were 644 wildfires recorded in Alberta. By May 31, 10,000 people had been evacuated, 16 homes, and the Steen River CN railway bridge, had been destroyed.
Binta Lake Fire was a lightning-caused wildfire in Southeast of Burns Lake, British Columbia that started on Wednesday, July 28, 2010, and lasted for more than a month. It was the largest fire in the province in 2010. The fire burned a total area of 400 square kilometers. The fire caused thick smoke in surrounding areas, evacuation orders in the region, and damaged merchantable timber.
The 2021 Western North America heat wave was an extreme heat wave that affected much of Western North America from late June through mid-July 2021. Extreme event attribution found this was a 1000-year weather event, made 150 times more likely by climate change. A study in Nature Climate Change estimated that its occurrence, while previously thought virtually impossible, is projected to increase rapidly with further global warming, possibly becoming a 10-yearly occurrence in a climate 2°C warming than the pre-industrial period, which may be reached by 2050 if fossil fuels are not phased out and carbon-dioxide emissions eliminated. The heat wave affected Northern California, Idaho, Western Nevada, Oregon, and Washington in the United States, as well as British Columbia, and in its latter phase, Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Yukon, all in Canada. It also affected inland regions of Central and Southern California, Northwestern and Southern Nevada and parts of Montana, though the temperature anomalies were not as extreme as in the regions farther north.
A wildfire began on June 30, 2021 just south of the village of Lytton in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. The fire destroyed much of Lytton and caused two civilian fatalities, announced July 3. Several missing residents, still unaccounted for at that time, were later located. The fire, one of the 2021 British Columbia wildfires throughout the province, was facilitated by the 2021 Western North America heat wave.
The White Rock Lake fire was a wildfire in Thompson-Nicola Regional District, British Columbia. It began July 13, 2021 as one of the 2021 B.C. wildfires and resulted in the destruction of Monte Lake. It totalled 83,047 hectares and was classified as out of control. Insured losses total an estimated $77 million Canadian, according to one agency, which in late September expected the number of claims to top 800, most of them related to residential property.
Beginning in March 2023, and with increased intensity starting in June, Canada was affected by a record-setting series of wildfires. All 13 provinces and territories were affected, with large fires in Alberta, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec. The 2023 wildfire season had the most area burned in Canada's recorded history, surpassing the 1989, 1995, and 2014 fire seasons, as well as in recorded North American history, surpassing the 2020 Western US wildfire season.
The McDougall Creek Fire was a wildfire in the Okanagan region of British Columbia, Canada as part of the 2023 Canadian wildfires. It started near West Kelowna on August 15, 2023, and was discovered at 5:59 pm PDT. The wildfire forced the evacuation of West Kelowna and parts of Kelowna.
