VANCOUVER - A wildfire has closed a section of Highway 20 west of Alexis Creek in B.C.'s Cariboo region.
It was reported August 11, and within hours had scorched one-square kilometre of bush near Bull Canyon, about 125 kilometres west of Williams Lake.
Although Highway 20 is the only road access to communities such as Bella Coola, west of the blaze, a government advisory notes that a lengthy detour is available via rural roads south of the highway.
The wildfire comes as the neighbouring Northwest Fire Centre announces campfire bans, effective today for the Nadina and Bulkley fire zones and most of the Skeena fire zone in the northwest coast region.
Concern about increasingly dry conditions and the possibility of human-caused wildfires has prompted campfire bans in five of B.C.'s six fire centres, with only the Prince George region still permitting campfires.
The Wildfire Management Branch reports 113 large or potentially threatening wildfires are burning across the province, with the largest being the nearly 900-square kilometre Cheslaslie River blaze, which remains uncontained near the boundary of the Northwest and Cariboo fire centres.