Emergency declared as fire spreads

Thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes after a fast-moving wildfire spread through part of British Columbia in western Canada.

A state of emergency was declared as the fire grew rapidly. BBC News reported that it had doubled in size after first being detected on Friday and remained out of control on Monday.

Damage assessment continues

Officials were still trying to establish how many homes had been lost. The uncertainty means an authoritative total for damaged property was not available in the reporting reviewed by Deluxe Media.

The BBC published a 35-second video page with its report and included residents' descriptions of how quickly conditions changed. Emergency information from local authorities should remain the primary guide for people in affected areas.

What is known

The verified information available to Deluxe Media establishes that the incident is in British Columbia, on Canada's Pacific coast, and that thousands of residents were displaced. The cause of the fire and the eventual scale of property losses had not been confirmed in the source reviewed.