Town site of Boston Bar, B.C., ordered to evacuate as wildfire flares

BOSTON BAR — Residents of the town site of Boston Bar, B.C., have been ordered to evacuate due to a wildfire that flared overnight.

Evacuees were told to head south via Highway 1, away from the Brunswick complex of fires that has been threatening the community about 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver this month.

The Fraser Valley Regional District said people in need of support should head to the Shxwháy Village community centre in Chilliwack.

The fire complex consisting of the Brunswick Creek and Ainslie Creek fires had already triggered a series of evacuation orders and alerts involving hundreds of properties, but the order issued Thursday morning extended the evacuation to the town site, which is home to about 170 residents.

An evacuation order and alert were separately issued for a new fire looming over Pemberton, B.C., as the number of fire starts across the province spiked overnight.

The BC Wildfire Service said there were about 31 active blazes across British Columbia, including 14 that started in the previous 24 hours.

Most were sparked by lightning in southern B.C. that had been the subject of dire warnings this week, although the Pemberton fire that was detected Wednesday is thought to have been human caused.

Photos on social media show flames and heavy smoke just outside the community of about 3,400 residents that is about 30 kilometres northeast of the resort of Whistler.

The Village of Pemberton issued the evacuation order late Wednesday night for the One Mile Lake Park area, while an evacuation alert from the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District for much of Pemberton was also in effect, warning residents to be ready to leave at short notice.

The BC Wildfire Service said the 10-hectare Signal Hill wildfire was within three kilometres of the town centre.

The service said in an update that the fire was not immediately threatening structures, and helicopters and an air tanker worked through the night to combat the blaze.

The spike in fire activity came amid warnings of heightened risks from dry lightning across the southern Interior into Friday.

Environment Canada meteorologist Colin Fong said Wednesday that it had been so dry that any falling rain typically evaporated before hitting the ground, making ignition from lightning a higher risk.

While the province’s fire season has so far been moderate, the wildfire service’s director of operations Cliff Chapman said this week that the lightning strikes could trigger up to 150 fire starts in a single day.

Parched conditions have triggered a ban on all fires except small campfires in the Northwest Fire Centre, and the Coastal Fire Centre was set to implement a ban on all fires on Thursday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2026.