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British Columbia Premier David Eby and B.C. Wildfire officials will be providing an update on the fire situation across the province on Saturday afternoon.
Global News will be hosting the livestream at the top of this story, which is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. P.T.
Currently, there are 380 active wildfires burning in the province, with more than 160 considered “out of control.” More than a dozen are considered either highly visible or a threat to a community.
Eby declared a provincial state of emergency on Friday night due to the rapid escalating crisis.
The emergency declaration was being implemented to ensure the province has rapid access to any tools that are needed to respond to the wildfires.
“We are facing the worst wildfire season in our province’s history — this unprecedented situation has come to a head this evening,” Eby said.
“In the last 24 hours the situation has evolved and deteriorated quite rapidly. In just the last hour, we’ve gone from about 4,500 homes under evacuation to about 15,000 (people) being evacuated from their homes across the province.”
B.C.’s Emergency Management and Climate Readiness Minister Bowinn Ma will also be at the news conference.
Earlier on Friday, she urged people to avoid all non-essential travel to fire-affected areas in the Central Interior and the province’s southeast.
“We are strongly recommending that people with plans to travel to fire-affected areas throughout the central interior and southeast in the coming days to cancel those plans, we need tourists and travellers to take the situation as seriously as the residents of these areas do,” Ma said Friday.
“By declaring a state of provincial emergency we are able to enact extraordinary powers that among other tools could include legally enforceable orders that restrict travel to specific areas if people do not adhere to our calls to avoid non-essential travel to the central interior and southeast.”
— With files from Simon Little, Global News
— More to come…
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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