Ainslie Creek wildfire burns to Alexandra Tunnel in Fraser Canyon<\/p>\n
Published 11:07 am Sunday, August 16, 2026<\/p>\n
The Ainslie Creek wildfire, between Highway 1 in the Fraser Canyon, Highway 5 (Coquihalla), and Highway 8, was estimated at 65,086 hectares as of Sunday morning (Aug. 16) and is still burning out of control.<\/p>\n
Highway 1 through the Fraser Canyon remains closed between Toll Road (Yale) and Aspen Road (south of Boston Bar), with no estimated date of reopening. Highways 5 and 8 are still open, but could close suddenly and with little notice. For up-to-date highway closure information, visit DriveBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fire behaviour remained high in the Fraser Canyon area on Saturday, with the fire burning Rank 2 and 3 throughout the day. The fire has advanced approximately 1.2 kilometres and is now at Alexandra Tunnel. Structure protection crews are in place to protect values and support wildland firefighting crews in keeping the fire from crossing Highway 1.<\/p>\n This increase in fire behaviour has caused significant debris- and rockfalls on Highway 1, and has generated significant smoke, which has reduced visibility and disrupted aviation support and crew safety. When visibility allows, helicopter bucketing will work to suppress the most active areas on this flank of the fire.<\/p>\n On the fire\u2019s northeast flank, where it is burning toward Highway 8, crews are having success extending a guard from the Edgar FSR to the Hooshum FSR. A second planned ignition is scheduled for the area, and fire activity near the Hooshum FSR was suppressed with heavy helicopter bucketing on Saturday.<\/p>\n On the southeast flank, crews \u2014 with heavy support from helicopter bucketing \u2014 continue to work on the west side of Maka Creek. Heavy equipment continues to work on a guard running from Fig Lake to the north and then south of the properties along Patchett Road.<\/p>\n Structure protection crews continue to assess and work further from the fire to the east and south into Brookmere and Kane Valley Road.<\/p>\n An Area Restriction is now in effect surrounding the Ainslie Creek wildfire. Recreational off-road vehicle use has been prohibited across several fire centres, including the area covered by the Ainslie Creek fire.<\/p>\n Drivers along roads and highways in the area of the Ainslie Creek wildfire are reminded that crews and heavy machinery are working and travelling throughout the area. Please moderate your speed, and do not enter any restricted areas unless authorized to do so.<\/p>\n For information about all evacuation orders and alerts issued in response to the Ainslie Creek wildfire, go to EmergencyInfoBC<\/a>. For information about the current wildfire situation throughout the province, visit the BC Wildfire Service map<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ainslie Creek wildfire burns to Alexandra Tunnel in Fraser Canyon Published 11:07 am Sunday, August 16, 2026 By…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[903,49,48,87674,6090],"class_list":["post-860561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860561","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=860561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}