UPDATE: 10:50 a.m.

The District of Barriere and now areas north and south of the community have been put in place because of the Sparks Lake wildfire.

Barriere was put on alert at 10 a.m., and 45 minutes later the Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued an alert for 231 properties, including McLure and Darfield.

Strong winds from the southwest pushed parts of the blaze further northeast, with the fire now being about 13 kilometres from the community of about 2,000 people.

The new growth also forced the TNRD to evacuate 12 homes last night east of Bonaparte Lake.

TNRD board chair Ken Gillis says he spoke to Lower North Thompson area director Bill Kershaw who said the fire appeared to be approaching the burn scar west of Barriere from the McLure-Barriere blaze of 2003.

“And while there may very well be quite a bit of fuel on the ground, I think the important words there are ‘on the ground.’ Because I’m told if the fire can be contained to a ground fire, it can be contained much more easily than if it’s in the air jumping from tree to tree, as these fires have been particularly the last couple of days.”

The Sparks Lake fire, which started on June 28 northwest of Kamloops, has now burned more than 90,500 hectares. It was suspected to be human-caused, breaking out during the historic heat dome when the temperature was above 40 degrees Celsius.

A full map of the evacuation alert zone in Barriere can be found here, on the district’s website. The TNRD’s new alert zone can also be found here.

A look at the Sparks Lake fire from #BarriereBC this evening, taken around 6:40 p.m., August 15.#Kamloops pic.twitter.com/hvqDeC0otL

— Victor Mario Kaisar (@supermario_47) August 16, 2021