Fort Nelson, B.C., wildfire evacuees allowed to return home

People have started to re‐ turn to Fort Nelson, B.C., more than two weeks after they were displaced due to a wildfire.

More than 4,500 residents of Fort Nelson and the near‐ by Fort Nelson First Nation have been out of their homes since May 10 due to the outof-control Parker Lake wild‐ fire just west of the town. People are now returning in their vehicles, according to a Radio-Canada reporter who was at the scene on Monday morning.

"I'm so happy to be home," Sarah Michel, one of the earliest evacuees to ar‐ rive back in Fort Nelson, told Radio-Canada Monday morn‐ ing. "We're very, very close. It's very welcoming commu‐ nity here so I can't wait for everyone to come home."

WATCH | Wildfire evac‐ uee came home:

On Sunday afternoon, Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) Mayor Rob Fraser told residents that they could return at 8 a.m. MT on Monday morning.

Before the evacuation or‐ der lifted Monday, Fraser told

Radio-Canada he was "ecsta‐ tic."

"We were able to find out the imminent threat has been significantly reduced and all of our community in‐ frastructure is in place and critical services are in place, so it's time to come home," he said in an interview around 5 a.m. MT.

WATCH | Mayor 'ecstat‐ ic' Fort Nelson residents can now return home:

Despite the positive up‐ date from Fraser on Sunday, the mayor says the commu‐ nity is not yet completely out of danger.

"We will be putting on an evacuation alert because there are still some fires out there," he said. "The condi‐ tions around the region are still extremely dry."

On Sunday, the B.C. Wild‐ fire Service (BCWS) said in a video update that wildfire conditions are expected to be volatile over the coming days, as northeast B.C. con‐ tinues to struggle with signifi‐ cant drought conditions.

"We're going to have some places that will get rain, others will stay dry," Eric Kopetski, a fire behaviour analyst, said in the update.

"In the areas that stay dry, we're expecting to see ... some fairly bigger surface fire, showing that the fire still has lots of potential.

"With the rain, we're going to see many areas and with very subdued fire behaviour ... however, we're still in very severe drought in this area and it's causing really signifi‐ cant challenges to our fire‐ fighters."

In addition to the Parker Lake wildfire, firefighters are also working to tackle the much larger Patry Creek wild‐ fire around 25 kilometres north of the community, a holdover fire which first started in 2023.

"The summer is going to be a long one. I think it's had an early start again," said Hugh Murdoch, a BCWS inci‐ dent commander.

"And there seems to be just so much fire on the land‐ scape so early. It's not just lightning that's going to give us our [fire] starts, but these holdover fires from previous year."

The Parker Lake wildfire is currently burning over an area of 123 square kilome‐ tres, while the Patry Creek wildfire occupies an area of around 643 square kilome‐ tres, according to the BCWS.

Both fires are burning near Fort Nelson, which is in the province's far northeast, about 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver and about 800 kilometres northwest of Ed‐ monton.

Fraser said that anyone who needed help to get back home should call the regional district at 250-775-0933, and urged residents coming back to be patient with business owners as they slowly begin resuming operations.

He also said that there will be a reception centre set up to assist returning residents. Some homes damaged The NRRM has previously said that 10 properties in Fort Nelson were damaged by the Parker Lake blaze, and four homes were destroyed, as the fire spread on May 10.

In an update on Sunday, the Fort Nelson First Nation says that while it didn't lose homes to the fire, some areas that were culturally sig‐ nificant have been damaged.

"To date, there have been no impacts to physical struc‐ tures in our community of Fort Nelson First Nation," of‐ ficials wrote in a letter posted to social media.

"However, we have expe‐

rienced some impacts to cul‐ tural assets in the Snake Riv‐ er area, and we will work with our community mem‐ bers and stakeholders to re‐ build these assets."

Fraser told a community update on Friday in Taylor, B.C., 400 kilometres south of Fort Nelson, that water, sewer, electricity and police services have all largely been restored in the town.

He said medical services will be restored in stages, and residents must consider delaying their return if they need specialized health care.

The Northern Health Au‐ thority said in an update Sun‐ day that emergency depart‐ ment services would resume at the Fort Nelson General Hospital with limited lab and medical imaging supports, with other departments ex‐ pected to restart in the weeks to come.

"Northern Health encour‐ ages returning residents to be aware that while the emergency department is open, individuals requiring hospital admission for inpa‐ tient care will temporarily continue to be transferred to other facilities in the north‐ east," the authority wrote in a statement.