{"id":788869,"date":"2026-07-08T19:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/788869\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:29:14","slug":"b-c-interior-skies-glow-orange-as-wildfire-smoke-from-fraser-canyon-settles-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/788869\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. Interior skies glow orange as wildfire smoke from Fraser Canyon settles in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 2 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It looked like some sort of Stephen King movie.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s how Kamloops resident Rob Woods described the skies in the Interior B.C. city Tuesday night, after strong winds drove a smoky, post-apocalyptic atmosphere into the area. <\/p>\n<p>By Wednesday morning, he was donning a mask to go outside.<\/p>\n<p>The skies above Kamloops began shifting Tuesday afternoon. Smoke started to drift in, something the city is familiar with after many years of wildfires filling the valley with thick smoke and ash. <\/p>\n<p>At about 4 p.m. PT, the city posted on social media letting residents know the smoke was not related to a fire nearby, but was blowing in from the Brunswick Creek fire in Boston Bar burning about 120 kilometres away. <\/p>\n<p>Soon, the sky glowed orange. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Orange skies above a street.\"   src=\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/ais\/208c4577-6122-4230-b030-815a6533f410,1783534015730\/full\/max\/0\/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C979%2C1051%29%3B\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.9314938154138915\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>The smoke turned the sky orange in Kamloops on Tuesday. (Darcy Peel)<\/p>\n<p>By 7 p.m., the streetlights came on as the sky darkened, resident John Karpluk said. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was black out,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Environment Canada meteorologist Morgen Shull said westerly winds gusting up to 43 km\/h brought the smoke into the area Tuesday afternoon. But when those winds died down overnight, she said, the smoke was left trapped.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Basically [the smoke] stuck around because wind hasn&#8217;t been strong enough,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"The silhouettes of trees are pictured against an orange, smoky sky.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783538953_511_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.0161290322580645\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Environment Canada&#8217;s Air Quality Health Index hit the highest level in Kamloops on Tuesday night. (Leah Thiemann)<\/p>\n<p>Between 4 and 5 p.m. Tuesday, the air quality shifted from 3 (low risk) to 10 (high risk), according to Environment Canada&#8217;s Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). An hour later, it hit 10+ \u2014 very high risk. So high, in fact, the forecasting agency <a href=\"https:\/\/weather.gc.ca\/airquality\/healthmessage_e.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">suggested avoiding strenuous activity outside<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>And it stayed nearly that bad overnight. As of Wednesday at 8 a.m., the AQHI was 10. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Orange skies and a dark grey smoke plume.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783538953_745_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7970479704797048\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Smoke settled into the Kamloops area on Tuesday. Environment Canada meteorologist Morgen Shull says air quality warnings will remain in place for at least the next two days. (Dana Eye)<\/p>\n<p>Shull said more westerly winds are expected Wednesday, but &#8220;there doesn&#8217;t seem to be any sort of big pattern change that will knock the smoke out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said air quality warnings are set to remain in place locally for the next two days. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Orange smoky skies over a highway.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783538954_3_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.4723926380368098\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Kamloops residents drove through the smoke on Tuesday. (Kayla Pepper)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-788869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788869","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=788869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}