Light rain and higher humidity in British Columbia have briefly tempered wildfire activity but hotter temperatures in the forecast appear poised to create new challenges for crews battling fires across the province.
Cliff Chapman with the BC Wildfire Service says a drying trend starting this weekend is expected to cause the southern half of the province to “heat up again” leading to the potential for more fires.
Chapman says the northeast corner of the province, which has spent years dealing with the brunt of B.C.’s wildfire season, has missed out on the rain happening elsewhere and continues to be an area of fire concern.
He says the overall amount of recent rain is not enough, and provides help on only a “micro scale” without knocking down fires for the season.
He says recent fire seasons in B.C. have not seen the kind of large “season-ending rain event” that would snuff out the last of the blazes and they have been left to rely on the seasonal shift from summer to fall and fall to winter.
Chapman says there is no area of the province that is immune from the threat of wildfires.
“In terms of the rest of August and even into September, I wouldn’t say there’s anywhere in B.C. that I would say there’s no hazard left there,” Chapman told a news conference Wednesday.
About 125 active wildfires are burning across the province, about double the number from last week when hot and dry weather combined with thousands of lightning strikes to spark dozens of new fires.
In the Fraser Canyon, an evacuation order issued by the Lytton First Nation due to the nearby Cantilever Bar wildfire has been rescinded after firefighters reclassified the blaze as being held on Tuesday.
Evacuation alerts issued by the Lytton First Nation, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and the Siska First Nation have also been lifted for areas around the fire.
British Columbia’s emergency information agency shows an active evacuation alert issued by the Skuppah Indian Band and the community could not be reached for an update on its alert status.
Firefighters working on Vancouver Island say the cooler weather has aided their work to contain a blaze burning out of control north of Cameron Lake.
The roughly five-square-kilometre wildfire has forced residents of almost 390 properties in the Regional District of Nanaimo to leave their homes.
An update posted by the BC Wildfire Service says crews made good progress improving containment of the blaze, guarding it from spreading to nearby homes and the Highway 4 corridor.
The update says light rain fell on the fire Tuesday, allowing firefighters to expand containment, and night-vision helicopters were set to work the fire’s perimeter overnight.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 6, 2025.
Chuck Chiang and Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press
