With Sun Peaks reopening and hundreds of empty hotel rooms, the village is hoping to house wildfire evacuees.

Mayor Al Raine says hotels have submitted inventories to Emergency Management B.C.

“I would expect, hopefully, by the end of today, Sun Peaks would be a place we could take evacuees,” Raine says.

“My hope is we’re going to get in some of the evacuees, who I keep hearing can’t find accommodation anywhere. And we’ve got hundreds of rooms available. So hopefully we can get on the list and start assisting people who have been forced out of their homes.”

Raine suspects up to 500 rooms will be able to be opened up for evacuees who need somewhere to stay.

“I’m told that there’s at least 200 available rooms, but there has to be 400 or 500. Sometimes the hotels don’t put all of their inventory into a question like that. So I suspect we could easily make 400 or 500 rooms available.”

Hotels in the resort will still have space for tourists as well when the village reopens to the general public tomorrow. It had been closed since July 10 because of the nearby Embleton Mountain fire, which has calmed down in recent days.

As of this morning, 5,084 properties in the Interior are evacuated, which is a jump of just over 2,000 properties in only two days.