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British Columbia is under a provincial state of emergency as of Saturday afternoon as over 100 wildfires rage across the province. <\/p>\n
All 12,000 residents of the District of Summerland were ordered to leave their homes late Friday night as the Bald Range wildfire advanced quickly on the community.<\/p>\n
According to the province, roughly 21,700 people are currently displaced from their homes across B.C. and an additional 9,700 people are on evacuation alert. <\/p>\n
“Homes have been lost, and properties have been destroyed, some people became trapped as conditions changed,” said Premier David Eby, speaking from downtown Vancouver on Saturday afternoon. <\/p>\n
“To everyone affected, you are not alone. British Columbians are with you.” <\/p>\n
Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness Kelly Greene said the province needs the tools and powers that a state of emergency allows so it can act at a moment’s notice. <\/p>\n
She said this includes commandeering accommodations or bringing in local travel restrictions in specific areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are people from every walk of life that are stepping up to do whatever they can to help their community. Thank you, from the province,” she said. <\/p>\n
WATCH | B.C. declares province-wide state of emergency:<\/p>\n
Greene said those planning on travelling in B.C. should check Emergency Info B.C.<\/a> and Drive B.C.<\/a> beforehand. <\/p>\n Eby said those under evacuation orders should leave immediately to allow first responders to do their work. <\/p>\n “The stories that are starting to come out are heroic. Many people put themselves at risk to save others. We thank them for their courage,” he said. <\/p>\n Cliff Chapman with the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) said the Bald Range fire is one of the most challenging fires the service has ever faced. <\/p>\n “This is many peoples’ worst nightmare,” he said. <\/p>\n Chapman said crews continue to work around the clock on search and rescue efforts. <\/p>\n He described the conditions in the province as “explosive” and as “conditions we have never seen before.” <\/p>\n Kevin Dunbar, director from the Ministry of Emergency Management said one of the biggest operational challenges with the evacuation is accommodation.\u00a0<\/p>\n He is encouraging those who can stay with friends and family to do so. <\/p>\n Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a social media post today the federal government “stands ready to help” B.C. <\/p>\n He also thanked firefighters and first responders for “working tirelessly to keep people safe.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-851196","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\/851196","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=851196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}