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The out-of-control Ainslie Creek wildfire north of Boston Bar, B.C., has destroyed at least seven buildings, including four homes or seasonal cabins, an official with the Fraser Valley Regional District said Friday after a spike in wildfire activity.
Patricia Ross, chair of the board of directors for the district, said more losses may be confirmed once it’s safe to conduct further assessments.
Ross said it had looked like fire crews were starting to get a handle on the two fires that make up the Brunswick complex last weekend, but winds picked up again earlier this week, howling through the Fraser Canyon and fanning the flames.
The shift prompted wildfire officials on Thursday to order the evacuation of the town site of Boston Bar, a community of about 170 residents, while elevated fire behaviour forced crews to pull back and prioritize structure protection.
“It is so dynamic and things can change very, very rapidly. We need to make sure that people have enough time to be ready and enough time to get out of there,” Ross said of the decision to upgrade to an evacuation order. “You don’t want to be waiting for the last minute because that exit route could be cut off.”
Gordon Robinson, a fire information officer assigned to the Brunswick complex, said conditions were cooler and more humid on Friday, allowing crews to restart their direct attack on the blazes that together span just over 200 square kilometres.
The primary threat for the Boston Bar town site was the Brunswick Creek fire, burning on the west side of the Fraser River, he said in an interview.
“The concern for that is if it were to grow to the south, and then with a strong west wind, the risk is that it could throw embers across the river.”
Fire activity had flared up as the number of active blazes in British Columbia spiked for a second straight day after thunderstorms rolled through parts of the province’s south.
The BC Wildfire Service website showed there were more than 50 active blazes on Friday, up from around 30 a day earlier, and 20 or so on Wednesday.
Robinson said it was the combination of aggressive fire behaviour, the forecasted breakdown of the high-pressure ridge and passage of the storm that triggered the upgraded evacuation order for Boston Bar out of an abundance of caution.
Environment Canada meanwhile issued a severe thunderstorm advisory for several regions on Friday, including much of Vancouver Island, the Peace region in B.C’s northeast and a swath of the Interior from Clinton north to Quesnel.
While the cooler, more settled weather was aiding crews on Friday, Robinson said the forecast suggested the reprieve would be short lived.
“There isn’t like a big storm and wind event in the forecast like we had (Thursday), but we’re going to go back to that hot, drying kind of conditions,” he said.
“The weather isn’t going to do us any favours, it’s also, it’s not throwing us a real curve ball like it did (Thursday),” Robinson said of the firefighting efforts at the Brunswick complex.
Ross said the evacuation order in the area includes 450 properties, though some are uninhabited.
She said she was aware that some people in Boston Bar had chosen to remain in their homes and businesses, contravening the evacuation order.
“We’re not unsympathetic. It must be incredibly hard,” she said in an interview on Friday. “People are trying to stay behind and do their best.
“But they’re not just putting themselves at risk, they’re putting the first responders at risk as well,” she said.
The Ainslie Creek blaze had already ripped through the Blue Lake Resort earlier this month, destroying several structures, including the home of operations manager Saeed Mansouri and his wife, who had left before the fire roared in.
Mansouri told The Canadian Press he had lost everything in the fire, including decades of poetry written in his native Farsi language and photos of his childhood.
He praised the efforts of the firefighters but said the blaze “was so big,” there was nothing that could be done to prevent the devastating outcome.
Hundreds of homes remain under evacuation orders and alerts at several locations across the province, including Pemberton, B.C., where a wildfire discovered Wednesday continued to loom above the community of about 3,400 residents.
The village issued an update Friday saying the BC Wildfire Service had requested additional resources to bolster its response to the blaze and ensure the local fire department wasn’t stretched thin while continuing to respond to regular 911 calls.
An existing evacuation order for the One Mile Lake Park area remained unchanged, as did an evacuation alert for parts of the village.
Emily Fardad with the BC Wildfire Service said on Thursday that crews had made progress on the blaze spanning about one square kilometre outside Pemberton, about 30 kilometres north of Whistler, and no structures were at risk at the time.
While cooler temperatures and higher humidity levels were expected to dampen fire activity on Friday, a warming and drying trend was forecasted to return starting Sunday, the wildfire service said in an update posted online.
Provincial officials had warned earlier this week of a possible spike in wildfire activity due to expected lightning strikes combined with very dry, hot conditions that provide ample fuel for fires.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2026.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
