Nervous times in Pemberton, B.C., as residents watch fire fight from their backyards

PEMBERTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — Pemberton Mayor Mike Richman says Wednesday evening was a long night for residents who watched from their homes as firefighters battled a blaze that grew quickly to threaten their small B.C. community.

“Nights are a little scary for folks, because you see the glow, the fire. It’s cause for extra anxiety,” he said, as he recounted a tense night watching firefighting aircraft dropping water and flame retardant on the Signal Hill blaze that had erupted earlier in the day.

Richman said he first noticed the fire on his bicycle ride to work, noticing it initially as a “small plume of smoke” in a recreational area.

But by the time he got to town it was “more substantial … an actual fire.”

The BC Wildfire Service said the fire almost quadrupled in size overnight to 38 hectares on Thursday.

Around midnight Wednesday, the Village of Pemberton had issued an evacuation order for the One Mile Lake Park area, while evacuation alerts were raised by the village and the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District for much of Pemberton, warning residents to be ready to leave at short notice.

Mila De, a manager at the Pemberton Hotel in the downtown core, said the fire there was bad enough on Wednesday that she started packing up her car, preparing to flee.

“I was really freaking out,” she said when reached by phone Thursday.

Flames and heavy smoke columns could be seen Thursday on the outskirts of the community of about 3,400 residents that is famous for its outdoor recreation and serves as a bedroom community for the resort of Whistler, which is about 30 kilometres southwest.

Flames flickered under power lines, and cracking sounds from the burning forest could be heard from the backyards of town houses adjacent to the blaze, with some residents setting up camp chairs to watch the firefighting efforts.

But wildfire service information officer Emily Fardad said late Thursday that crews were making progress, structures were not currently at risk, and officials did not immediately expect changes to evacuation orders or alerts.

High winds that were whipping through the community were helping in the firefight, and were not blowing the fire towards Pemberton, she said.

Fardad said it was understandable for people to be concerned when fires were close to home.

“It certainly can be an unsettling sight. Our crews are out there. They’re doing everything that they can. We’ve got the resources required. We’re working on protecting all assets and all values, and at this point we are making great progress,” she said.

The Signal Hill fire was among a spate of new fire starts across southern British Columbia, with the BC Wildfire Service’s dashboard on Thursday afternoon showing about 35 active blazes, including 20 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, with the wildfire service’s director of operations Cliff Chapman saying that lightning strikes could trigger up to 150 fire starts in a single day.

But the Pemberton fire is thought to have been human caused, and while the focus has been on new fire starts, the Brunswick complex of fires has been threatening Boston Bar, about 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, since early this month.

That blaze roared back in strength overnight, and on Thursday morning, the evacuation of the town site was ordered.

Gurvinder Badyal operates the Canyon Alpine Motel in Boston Bar, but she said she wasn’t going anywhere, not yet at least.

She said she was among several local business owners choosing to stay despite the evacuation order.

Badyal said they wanted to protect their properties from the fires, looters and anything else.

“The owners are all here and whoever wants to stay here. I mean, they can’t put us in cuffs and take them away, but we are under (evacuation) order. And we’re ready, we’re all packed. We’re ready to leave if we have to,” she said.

Badyal was also staying for another reason; her motel is hosting about 35 firefighters.

“They’re trying to help us as much as they can. We have sprinklers installed by them on my whole property,” she said of the “brave” firefighters who have been working roughly 12-hour shifts each night before coming back to the motel to sleep.

The 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 about 200 properties in and around the town site, which is home to about 170 residents.

Evacuees were told to head south via Highway 1, away from the fires that have now closed the highway to the north. The Fraser Valley Regional District said people in need of support should head to the Shxwháy Village community centre in Chilliwack.

The B.C. Wildfire Service said in an update that it expected “aggressive fire behaviour” from the complex to continue.

Badyal said she hasn’t seen any flames, but the smoke is thick.

“We could barely breathe here,” she said.

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

Heat warnings are in effect for B.C.’s Fraser Canyon and southern Interior, where temperatures were forecast to reach the mid- to high 30s, as well and parts of the Peace River region in the northeast where temperatures in the low 30s were predicted.

Air-quality warnings due to wildfire smoke were also in effect for the Fraser Canyon, Nicola and South Thompson regions.

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

Back in Pemberton, the owner and manager of Pemberton Valley Lodge, David MacKenzie said he was putting his faith in firefighters. The lodge is on the same side of Highway 99 as the fire but they are separated by Pemberton Creek, which he called “a great boundary.”

He said all guests due to arrive on Thursday were advised to rebook at a later time or cancel without charge.

“We want to make sure we’re not bringing extra people here that we may need to evacuate,” he said.

MacKenzie said he was calm about the prospect of evacuation. “They know when they need to pull the pin, if there’s going to be an evacuation order,” he said of firefighters including local crews from Pemberton Fire Rescue.

Mayor Richman said that 1,300 homes had been put on evacuation alert in case a wind shift put them in peril.

The situation was “tough, it’s stressful, it’s unnerving.”

But the community was responding well. “I’d encourage people to stay cool, to stay informed and be ready,” he said.

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

— With files by Marissa Birnie and Ashley Joannou in Vancouver

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press