152-hectare fire near Logan Lake prompts highway closure

Firefighters continued to battle an out-of-control wildfire near Logan Lake, British Columbia, on Friday, July 31, 2026, as the blaze grew significantly overnight. The Guichon Creek wildfire, which ignited on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 29, was reported by the BC Wildfire Service to be 152 hectares in size on Friday morning, a substantial increase from earlier estimates. The fire has prompted evacuation alerts for dozens of properties and forced the closure of Highway 97C between Logan Lake and the Highland Valley Copper Mine.

The wildfire service deployed significant resources, including air tankers, skimmers, and helicopters equipped with night vision systems, to conduct tanking and bucketing operations throughout Thursday night and into Friday. A team of 24 firefighters remained on the ground, supported by heavy equipment building containment lines. Fire behavior was reported as Rank 2 and 3 on Thursday and Friday, characterized as a surface fire with open flame, occasional candling, and a slow to moderate rate of spread. This represented a decrease from the more intense Rank 3 and 4 behavior observed shortly after the fire sparked on Wednesday, which featured an...