{"id":68695,"date":"2025-08-14T09:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/68695\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T09:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T09:47:11","slug":"wildfire-near-port-alberni-exhibiting-extreme-fire-behaviour-say-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/68695\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire near Port Alberni exhibiting \u2018extreme fire behaviour\u2019 say officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fire, which is now estimated to be 2,156 hectares in size, is exhibiting \u201cextreme fire behaviour,\u201d the BC Wildfire<\/a> Service said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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In addition, more growth is expected for this fire on Wednesday, according to wildfire officials.<\/p>\n

The City of Port Alberni, the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District and the Tseshaht First Nation have all issued local states of emergency due to the growing blaze.<\/p>\n

An air quality advisory has been issued due to the wildfire smoke for inland Vancouver Island, east Vancouver Island from Nanoose Bay to Fanny Bay and for the Sunshine Coast from Saltery Bay to Powell River.<\/p>\n

A shift in the winds has now pushed the fire more from the south to the north, which has led crews to focus on the northwest flank, which is closest to Port Alberni.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFast-growing wildfire forces evacuations, closes roads near Port Alberni\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Karley Desrosiers, a fire information officer with the BC wildfire Service said crews are removing trees, shrubs and vegetation to establish a guard.<\/p>\n

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She said while there is some rain in the forecast, it is unclear at this time how much, but it won\u2019t be enough to penetrate the ground and help extinguish the fire.<\/p>\n

Desrosiers said the east flank of the fire is producing the largest amount of smoke and growth and the fire is burning in incredibly challenging terrain for crews.<\/p>\n

There are 64 ground crews working on the fire with heavy equipment and helicopters bucketing and air tankers are available as required, Desrosiers added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fire is quite unusual in terms of size already,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not common to have fires in the thousands of hectares on Vancouver Island but we can attribute that to the drought.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Desrosiers said little rain has fallen in this area of B.C. since May.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that drought, while the rest of the province has experienced more intense drought conditions, over the past couple of years the Coastal Fire Centre region has managed to avoid those similar drought conditions, but with that absence of rain since May that has certainly resulted in that aggressive fire behaviour and I would say, certainly, not in recent history, to have a fire grow to this size and this quickly and exhibit this extreme fire behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Port Alberni\u2019s Cameron Heights neighbourhood is under evacuation alert and residents in that area must be prepared to leave at a moment\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n

An evacuation order that covers a large but sparsely populated rural area is also in effect.<\/p>\n

The China Creek Campground and the marina was ordered to be evacuated on Monday.<\/p>\n

Port Alberni resident Rick Semchuk told Global News that he visited the waterfront to take some photographs on Monday and returned to evacuation orders.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time I got back, the marina crew was already driving around in their golf carts, telling everyone to get out,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got out in about fifteen minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOut-of-control Mount Underwood wildfire closes roads, cuts off power to Bamfield\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The road between Port Alberni and Bamfield remains closed due to the fire.<\/p>\n

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More than 500 BC Hydro customers in Bamfield and the surrounding First Nations villages also remain without power.<\/p>\n

\u201dI said to someone earlier today, I personally can\u2019t look out a window without seeing the plumes of smoke and I think many people are in that same situation,\u201d Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know that that comes with extreme discomfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fire, which is now estimated to be 2,156 hectares in size, is exhibiting \u201cextreme fire behaviour,\u201d the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26745,1132,43,44,43320,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-68695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-bc-wildfire","9":"tag-fire","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-port-alberni-wildfire","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}