Emergency Management BC is acknowledging that travel distance for many wildfire evacuees has been “longer than normal” this year.

Pader Brach with EMBC was asked why people in Spences Bridge with nowhere to go have to seek lodging in Chilliwack, almost three hours away, instead of somewhere closer. The community was evacuated yesterday because of the Lytton Creek fire.

Brach said officials are doing “the best they can.”

“This unprecedented fire season has certainly created challenges with evacuees and challenges in finding places to stay, and accommodations to stay at.”

While calling this fire season unprecedented, 2017 saw about 40,000 British Columbians evacuated during the peak of that season, and about 40,000 people were also evacuated during the 2003 fire season.

The number of properties on evacuation order in B.C. has risen greatly in just two days, from 3,078 on Wednesday morning to 5,084 this morning.

Brach also said there are “plans in place” to set up group lodging in the Kamloops area but did not offer more details.

“And so we just ask that communities continue to do everything they can to support evacuees, with the knowledge that right now, based on the number of fires in B.C., we’re doing the best we can to find accommodations.”

Officials with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and City of Kamloops have told NL News this month that cots have been considered in public buildings, including schools or other civic facilities, but that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an approach of filling commercial lodging with evacuees instead.

Further, local officials in the Kamloops area say EMBC makes final decisions on where evacuees can be housed.