The entire city of Fort St. John has been placed under evacuation alert in response to a wildfire that’s grown to 130 square kilometres in size. The city issued the alert yesterday afternoon, telling all of its approximately 21-thousand residents to get ready to leave their homes quickly if necessary. An evacuation order has meanwhile been expanded across a large swath of the regional district north of Fort St. John, while an alert has been issued for all residents of the District of Taylor, a nearby community of about 13-hundred people. The nearby Doig River First Nation has also issued an evacuation order, telling residents to leave right away — although the bulletin urges people to stay calm, saying the community is not in imminent danger.
Environment Canada says more than 30 daily high temperature records fell across BC on Sunday, including in Squamish, where the mercury hit 35.8 degrees. The hot, sunny weather has raised the risks of wildfire and flooding and prompted an air quality advisory for northeastern parts of Metro Vancouver. The regional district says it issued the advisory in response to high concentrations of ground-level ozone that are expected to last until temperatures cool off. The district says ground-level ozone is formed when pollution from burning fossil fuels reacts with sunlight, while a plume of spoke from a wildfire burning near Mission is also contributing to hazy conditions.
Much of eastern BC remains under high streamflow advisories as an unseasonable heat wave quickly melts the mountain snowpack. The advisories from BC’s River Forecast Centre stretch from the southern Interior to the Kootenays and north to the Peace Region along the boundary with Alberta. Higher-level flood watches are in effect for the Skeena region, the Bella Coola River above Hammer Creek, and Cache Creek, where the community is mopping up from flooding that cut through the centre of the village earlier this month. Roughly half of the 300 residents of Cache Creek who had been forced from their homes have now been allowed to return, while to the southeast, the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary has issued an evacuation order for six properties in the Manly Meadows area east of Grand Forks.
BC’s health minister says some breast and prostate cancer patients will be referred to two clinics in Washington in an effort to reduce wait times for radiation therapy. Starting May 29th, Adrian Dix says BC Cancer will offer eligible patients the opportunity to undergo treatment at one of two partner clinics in Bellingham, with costs related to treatment, travel, accommodation and meals fully covered. Dix says the province is making the move because BC hasn’t been meeting its target for ensuring cancer patients receive radiation therapy in a timely manner. He says the delays are due to factors including shortages of key personnel and the process to replace certain equipment, and the arrangement with the clinics in Bellingham is temporary — aimed at getting people the care they need, sooner, as the province works to expand its own cancer care services.
The premier says he’s hopeful one of BC’s largest social housing operators can now focus fully on helping vulnerable people following weeks of leadership turmoil after its CEO announced she would step down effective immediately. David Eby says Janice Abbott’s resignation from the Atira Women’s Resource Society is a step towards rebuilding public confidence in the non-profit organization. It comes after an audit found violations of conflict-of-interest rules and mismanagement at the government’s Crown social housing provider, BC Housing, related to its former CEO Shayne Ramsay, who is Abbott’s husband. The statement from Atira says the provider has also returned 1.9 million dollars in surplus funds to BC Housing, agreed to include a government representative as an observer on its board and established a group to investigate Atira’s policies and practices, including how it deals with conflicts of interest.