What you need to know about B.C. wildfires on Aug. 15

Thousands of wildfire evacuees are returning across the province, as Highway 97 near Cache Creek to reopen

Returning evacuees told to prepare

Hundreds of evacuees are set to return to their homes in the Clinton area on Saturday after being forced from their homes due to the Pear Lake wildfire in late July.

Evacuation orders are being downgraded to evacuation alerts for a large number of properties, including the entire Village of Clinton.

Thousands of other evacuees returned to their homes across the province on Friday.

Clinton Mayor Roland Stanke is asking returning residents to brace themselves for a devastated landscape and community.

"The treeline and the landscape, it certainly will be scarred forever," he told CBC's Radio West on Friday evening.

"People [should] understand that going home doesn't mean that everything is back to normal, there's going to be an adjustment period."

Stanke estimated that at least 100 homes were destroyed due to the fire.

Damage assessments are underway across B.C. due to a number of devastating wildfires, which have resulted in valuable cultural treasures being lost.

Officials are advising returning evacuees across B.C. to be prepared for fallen trees, intermittent power and even bears roaming their communities.

Craig Cruickshank and Melanie Germain, who returned to the La Casa Resort near West Kelowna after being forced to flee due to the Quilpituk Creek wildfire, said that it was their third time evacuating from a wildfire in the area.

"I felt like we were going to be OK, but it's up to the winds and Mother Nature," Germain said. "So we lucked out again for the third time."

Smoke to return to central B.C.

Across B.C., there were over 120 wildfires burning as of Friday night, concentrated in the southern half of the province.

The Pear Lake wildfire remains the province's biggest, at 1,574 square kilometres as of Friday night.

Near Summerland, the Bald Range wildfire continues to burn out of control, and was measured at nearly 198 square kilometres.

The BCWS said that wildfire smoke — which had made its way to southwest B.C. in recent days — would gradually move back into the central areas of the province this weekend.

"While smoke can impact visibility and air quality, it may also help moderate fire behaviour by reducing the amount of radiant heat reaching the landscape," the service said in a Friday update.

A number of air quality warnings were posted across B.C. on Friday night.

Highway 97, which was closed since July 28 in the Cache Creek area due to the Pear Lake wildfire, is set to fully reopen at noon PT Saturday.

No stopping will be allowed along the stretch, according to the B.C. government, as it remains an active wildfire area.

A stretch of Highway 97 further south in the Okanagan — between Peachland and the Pyramid Picnic Area in Kickininee Provincial Park — which had been closed due to the Bald Range wildfire reopened in a limited fashion on Thursday.

Highway 1 north of Hope in the Fraser Canyon remains a major stretch that is closed due to wildfires in B.C.

It is largely because of the Brunswick Creek wildfire complex around Boston Bar, which covered an area of more than 700 square kilometres as of Friday night.

With files from Sarah Penton and Brady Strachan