Firefighters continue to battle flames in B.C., Northwest Territories

Officials in western Canada say they’ve been making progress in their fight against fires raging in many parts of the country. However, they say the fight is still far from over.

Right now, British Columbia remains in a state of emergency as Canada experiences its worst wildfire season on record.

West Kelowna has been devastated with thousands being forced to flee their homes.

Speaking in Prince Edward Island, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal cabinet’s Incident Response Group met today to discuss ongoing coordination of the fire situation.

“Canadians from coast to coast to coast are watching in horror the images of apocalyptic devastation and fires going on in communities that so many of us know, and so many of us have friends in,” Trudeau said.

“This is a scary and heartbreaking time for people.”

Madi Kock describes the horrific scenes she has witnessed in her life-long home of Kelowna.

“It’s dark here and it’s cold, and it’s smoky, and it’s grim,” Kock said.

“You could walk down to the waterfront and see the entire west side just lit up in flames… it’s bizarre, everybody is completely silent just watching houses almost explode and trees candling up into flames.”

B.C. remains in a state of emergency as the wildfires forced thousands of residents to evacuate from their homes.

But there’s hope as the regional district of Central Okanagan provided an update on the situation on Monday.

The B.C. wildfire service said the past 24 hours have been favourable for firefighting, and that the coming 24 hours looks favourable as well.

“Looking at the weather here in the next couple days, we are expecting to see more seasonal temperatures in the mid-twenties. The humidity will be working in our favour, and that will continue today. We will see some winds shift southerly into today and tomorrow, in a fashion that we’re not expecting any rapid increases in fire behaviour or spread on any of these fires.”

More than 380 blazes are active in the province right now and about 140,000 square kilometres of land have already burned.

The West Kelowna fire chief described the intense day-to-day grind of his frontline workers.

“I saw the firefighters from the night shift coming back.. and they were black. And they were black because they were out there doing that grind, that hard work of firefighting. Our firefighters are pulling back to back shifts,” the chief said.

In the meantime, Madi Koch, who’s been working with two local businesses who have shifted gears to help with the emergency response, said the sense of community and support remains strong among the devastating losses.

“There’s this glimmer of light that everyone has been showing with their support, and yeah it’s been really really nice to see how the community comes together,” Kock said.

As for the residents who are waiting to find out if their homes are still standing, the West Kelowna fire chief says damage assessment is not complete.

Meanwhile, crews battling a wildfire near Yellowknife are working to extinguish the flames along the fire’s front line.

A weekend of cooler temperatures, favourable winds and some rain allowed firefighters to switch from defense to offense.