Wildfire near Lytton won't stop weekend festival, says organizer

A wildfire burning about two kilometres south of Lytton, B.C., is now 40 percent contained and organizers of a weekend festival say the celebrations are going ahead.

"Right now we're looking at a Rank 1. It's a smouldering ground fire. You know, with a little bit of flare ups here and there, but nothing too serious," said Max Birkner, the fire information officer with the Kamloops Fire Centre.

Official estimates put the fire at 500 hectares in size, but crews are gaining control, he said.

"There's a lot of smoke visible here from Lytton, but you can't really see a lot of flame from the mountain from town at this point."

Today 91 firefighters will be on scene, along with heavy equipment and helicopters. There is rain in the forecast for the area, though there hasn't been any precipitation as of Friday morning.

The South Spencer Road fire started early Wednesday morning and triggered two evacuation orders affecting 11 homes, which remained in effect on Friday morning.

About 40 others remained under evacuation alerts, meaning residents must be ready to leave at a moment's notice if conditions change.

Festival going ahead

Meanwhile organizers of the Lytton River Festival say it will go ahead this weekend as planned, despite a request from the Lytton First Nation that the event be postponed.

The festival president Nonie McCann lives in one of the areas impacted by the evacuation alert and says it will be good for the community.

"The festival is an opportunity to focus on the resilience of our community members facing emergencies with good humour and positive action," said McCann.

She says they'll be watching the fire and will keep the community posted of any possible changes.

"I know that I'm actually feeling kind of glad that I have something other than the fire to occupy my mind and my time right now, because I might be stressing about what going on in that situation."