UPDATE: 7:00 p.m.

The City of Kamloops has now issued an evacuation alert for Pineview Valley and Iron Mask because of the Tremont Creek wildfire.

The alert zone affects homes in Pineview Valley, Iron Mask and the Versatile Drive Industrial Park. A full list of addresses provided by the City of Kamloops can be viewed on its emergency operations centre page, which can be found here.

The fire has moved significantly towards the northeast today with heavy winds from the south and southwest. Smoke from that blaze also led to an eerie orange haze blanketing the Kamloops area in the afternoon. Witness videos at about 5:30 p.m. shared on social media show extreme fire activity in an area not far from Dairy Lake and Greenstone Mountain Provincial Park.

In the past hour, at time of posting, winds have shifted and are now gusting from the northeast.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District has also told people in Cherry Creek to evacuate as soon as possible because of the fire. The area had been on evacuation alert since Friday night.

The TNRD says the new evacuation order impacts all areas south of the Trans-Canada Highway from Cherry Creek to the Tobiano area; Tobiano itself, on the north side of the highway, is remaining on evacuation alert. The highway also still remains open between Cherry Creek and Cache Creek.

“The TNRD is confirming evacuation details before releasing the order but we strongly encourage residents in the area to leave as soon as possible,” the regional district says. Once further details from the TNRD are released on the order, they can be found by clicking here.

The Tremont Creek fire, which started on July 12 just east of Ashcroft, has now grown to 63,078 hectares, having more than doubled in size in the past three days. It had already forced Logan Lake, Tunkwa Lake, Paska Lake and Dominic Lake to evacuate.

The fire has been encroaching on Logan Lake, as the community of 2,000 people has been evacuated since Thursday afternoon. There have been no structures lost up to this point in Logan Lake, despite the fire coming within less than one kilometre of some homes in town and pushing up against Highway 97D.

“We are confident we can hold our lines to protect Logan Lake homes and businesses. However, this is a very dangerous fire and if the winds are strong, we will have a fight on our hands,” the District of Logan Lake said in an online update at 6 p.m.

Winds and hot and dry weather have led to extreme fire behaviour at many of the most significant blazes in the southern Interior, including the Tremont Creek fire, the eastern flanks of the White Rock Lake fire, the Mowhokam Creek fire, and the Lytton Creek fire, among others.

On Saturday alone, the TNRD issued five separate evacuation orders affecting 346 properties, as well as four separate alerts for 261 properties. The Village of Lytton also re-evacuated properties that were no longer on order after most of the town burned down on June 30. Four Indigenous communities issued evacuations Saturday as well: the Lower Nicola Indian Band, the Shackan Indian Band, the Nooaitch Indian Band and the Kanaka Bar Indian Band.

NL’s Brett Mineer visited Cherry Creek Sunday afternoon, prior to the evacuation order being issued. He gave a verbal update of the fire scene, which can be heard in the embedded video below.

#TremontCreekFire darkening the sky over #Kamloops View from the top of Beaton Road at Cherry Creek. pic.twitter.com/KPLY4R7rdt

— Brett Mineer (@MineerBrett) August 15, 2021