courtesy: BBC
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The Canadian province British Columbia was under a state of emergency order early Saturday, hours after most residents of Yellowknife, a city in far North, fled ahead of the deadline to evacuate because of the dangerous wildfire.
Yellowknife, which is also the capital of the Northwest Territories, saw the wildfire getting near and was expected to reach the city limits by the weekend. The mass migration from Yellowknife occurred as blazes scared the residents of Kelowna, a much larger city in British Columbia, from hundreds of miles away.
Labelling this year’s wildfire season as the worst for the province, the officials of the British Columbia declared state of emergency. The order allows officials to enact travel restrictions and other emergency measures.
It remained unclear as of how many residents of Yellowknife fled in order to evacuate by noon. But the officials stated that most stores had closed and that the hospital was offering only emergency care, its patients having been flown to facilities elsewhere.
In Kelowna, a major resort area and several homes on its suburban fringe had caught fire. The orders to evacuate were decreed in a community where several homes were destroyed on Thursday night.