lytton fire

A large stretch of the Fraser Canyon near Lytton is glowing orange this morning.

A local First Nation has been evacuated already and people in a number of other homes may have to leave at a moment’s notice, thanks to the Cisco Road Fire.

The wildfire quadrupled in size yesterday afternoon; it is now an estimated 1,500 hectares in size, which is nearly four times the size of Stanley Park. It has not been contained.

“Pockets of flames are exploding in the treeline and then dissipate with the rain. Then another one will explode,” describes NEWS 1130 reporter Simon Druker, who is in Lytton.

“It looks like hot embers through a giant cloud of smoke across from the highway.”

He adds the terrain in the area is difficult for crews to access. “It’s zig-zagging over a number of ridges in the Fraser Canyon, many of them heavily covered in trees.”

There’s no sign of aerial water support.

“You can imagine that would be pretty tough, at this point, with low cloud cover and smoke making [for challenging conditions],” says Druker. “This heavy white smoke is all you can smell for kilometres.”

There will be a bit of rainfall in the area today, but not much, and the wind gusts are up to 50km/hr, which certainly isn’t helping crews.

The smoke can be seen as far away as the North Okanagan.