Wildfires burning across the western U.S. and Canada have left some residents keeping a weary eye out for possible evacuation orders while others have already been forced to flee their homes.

In western Canada, over 20,000 people were forced to flee communities along Okanagan Lake in British Columbia over the weekend as a fast-moving wildfire destroyed homes and dozens had to be rescued by aircraft.

Evacuations in British Columbia

Anette Boulet was among residents who fled Summerland, home to about 12,000 people. As she and her family left around 4:30 a.m. Saturday, their home was shrouded in smoke.

“You couldn’t see barely. It was, it was just dark, and the ridge, the ridge of fire just coming towards you,” said Boulet, who evacuated to a center in Penticton.

Besides the evacuations in Summerland, the Bald Range fire, first reported Friday evening, has also led to the evacuation of about 8,000 people in and around nearby Peachland.

US Evacuations

In the U.S., residents in some areas north of Spokane, Washington, were being advised to leave their homes. Residents in the rural towns of Malden and Rosalia, located about 35 miles south of Spokane, saw their evacuation level downgraded Sunday after being urged to leave the previous day after two fires started nearby.

John Goyke, mayor of Rosalia and the water operator for Malden, said that he saw the trees on the rolling hills burning Sunday morning. He put Malden on a water restriction Saturday night so water could be saved for fire trucks, and Malden’s fire department began trucking water from Rosalia.

In Utah, two helicopter pilots were killed when their aircraft crashed while they were fighting a wildfire Friday morning in the Fishlake National Forest.

Original reporting: Alexandria, VA News – WTOP News — read the source article.