The province imposed an emergency late on Friday, giving officials more power to deal with fire risks. By Saturday, more than 35,000 residents were under an evacuation order and another 30,000 were under an evacuation alert.

The McDougall Creek fire is centred on Kelowna, a city about 300km east of Vancouver with a population of about 150,000.

But other blazes, exacerbated by severe drought, have been reported closer to the US border and in the US Pacific Northwest, where separate wildfires had killed at least one person and destroyed dozens of structures.

Canadian ministers and other government officials urged residents living in evacuation order zones to take immediate action in the interest of their own lives and those of the firefighters.

British Columbia Premier David Eby also imposed a ban on nonessential travel on Saturday to free up accommodation for evacuees and firefighters. Authorities urged people to avoid travelling to fire zones and avoid operating drones to take photos, which they said would hamper the work of firefighters.

Officials have not yet given any estimates of the total number of buildings destroyed.

Trudeau said in a social media post that the federal government has agreed to send in assistance following a request from the British Columbia government.

Forest fires are not uncommon in Canada, but the spread of blazes and disruptions underscore the severity of its worst wildfire season yet.

The fires have drained local resources and drawn in federal government assistance as well as support from 13 countries. At least four firefighters have died in the line of duty.

About 140,000km2 of land, roughly the size of New York state, have already been scorched nationwide, with smoky haze extending as far as the US East Coast. Government officials project that the fire season could stretch into autumn due to widespread drought-like conditions.

 Skies on fire

Some 2,000km to the north, a wildfire burning out of control in Yellowknife, the capital city of Northwest Territories, had triggered evacuations of almost all of its 20,000 residents last week.

Currently, the fire is not expected to reach city limits by the end of the weekend, officials said, with some rain and cooler temperatures helping to slow its progress.

Krista Flesjer, who left the city with her dogs, said it was a rough trip.

“I was afraid of getting caught in the fires that were coming across the road,” she said.

For Flesjer, the main worry is whether her house, which is just two years old, would survive.

In British Columbia, the TransCanada highway was closed near Chase, about 400km northeast of Vancouver, and between Hope, 150km east of Vancouver, and the village of Lytton. The highway is the main east-west artery used by thousands of motorists and truckers heading to Vancouver, the country’s busiest port.

Kip Lumquist, who works at a gift shop in Craigellachie, a tourist spot on the highway, said she saw a lot of devastation over the past week.

“It was crazy. We couldn’t see the hills, the mountains, the trees, anything, probably (for) two-and-a-half days,” Lumquist said. “I drive a white vehicle, and when I walked out to get in my car … it’s just black. It’s devastating to the community.”

Just across the border in Washington state, firefighters battled two major blazes, the Gray Fire and the Oregon Road Fire, which combined had blackened more than 8,000 hectares of forest land and destroyed more than 100 structures.

Washington wildfire officials confirmed that at least one person had died in the Gray Fire.

(Reporting by Denny Thomas in Toronto and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Mark Porter and Matthew Lewis)