A fast-moving wildfire in the British Columbia Interior sparked a new evacuation order Wednesday night.
The order, covering 60 seasonal properties north of Kamloops near Bonaparte Lake, was issued just a few hours after residents who were forced out of their homes thanks to another area wildfire were allowed to return.
The Bonaparte Lake blaze was discovered Wednesday afternoon and within a few hours it ballooned from 20 hectares to 150 hectares.
"That's actually a pretty phenomenal rate of spread," Michaela Swan, an information officer at the Kamloops Fire Centre, said in an interview.
Regional district officials said about 125 residents were affected by the evacuation order. The Thompson-Nicola Regional District also declared a local state of emergency.
Liz Cornwell, a district spokeswoman, said RCMP officers went door to door Wednesday night telling residents to evacuate.
Residents were advised to drive safely to a Kamloops emergency reception centre.
The Bonaparte Lake fire was not at all contained late Wednesday. Fire officials said it was too early to determine a cause.
Smoke could be seen in the community of Barriere, which sits 22 kilometres from the lake.
Three air tankers worked on the wildfire until the sun went down after ground crews were unable to combat the blaze.
"We're seeing very volatile fire conditions out there," Swan said. She added that the fire occurred in a region littered with dry, dead trees, courtesy of the mountain pine beetle.
As residents forced out of their homes by the Bonaparte Lake wildfire watched anxiously Wednesday night as flames spread, those who were allowed to return to their residences after the Barnhartvale blaze settled back into their own beds.
That fire broke out late Tuesday night and, when dawn arrived, it had already scorched 50 hectares -- half a square kilometre -- on the eastern edge of Kamloops, 350 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.
But the 150 affected residents were allowed to return home just a few hours later thanks to a well-timed gust of wind.
Just as residents began to fear the worst, winds pushed the flames back, helping slow the fire's growth so crews could close in.
"The winds were coming from the southwest this morning, which was actually pushing the fire back toward itself so all the fuels had already been burned at that point," said Elise Riedlinger, an information officer at the Kamloops Fire Centre.
The fire, which grew to 53 hectares, was 85 per cent contained Wednesday night.
The evacuees were residents of an area trailer park and they, along with residents of several hundred homes in neighbouring suburbs, remain on evacuation alert. That means they could be forced from their homes again at a moment's notice.
Graham Pensler, who lives in the trailer park, said he and his neighbours didn't have much time before they had to leave their homes.
"Police were up and gave us an evacuation alert," he said about his early-morning wake-up call.
"Within 20 minutes, they said get out. It was that quick."
Fellow resident Jennifer McKinnon carted several family pets around Wednesday. She said the fire was right behind her home and she did her best to keep watch before she was forced out.
Her boyfriend, Jason Mills, rushed to help when he saw how close to the trailer park the flames had gotten.
"I could actually see smoke that was glowing from Valleyview," he said. "It was all the way up by Juniper and I could smell it. It was scary."
Fire chief Andy Philpott said crews made good progress Wednesday afternoon, despite the occasional flare-up.
The Kamloops area is no stranger to dangerous wildfires.
Several major blazes were sparked north of the city in July 2003, with one fire burning within metres of the small community of Rayleigh, 16 kilometres away.
A separate fire near the town of McLure, 46 kilometres to the north, eventually grew to more than 83 square kilometres and destroyed dozens of homes and a sawmill in the nearby community of Louis Creek.
