Fort Nelson, B.C., wildfire evacuees allowed to return home starting Monday

Thousands of people are set to return to Fort Nelson, B.C., more than two weeks after they were displaced due to a wildfire.

More than 4,500 residents of Fort Nelson and the nearby Fort Nelson First Nation have been out of their homes since May 10 due to the out-of-control Parker Lake wildfire just west of the town.

On Sunday afternoon, Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) Mayor Rob Fraser told residents that they could return at 8 a.m. on Monday morning.

While some essential workers were slowly being let back in to get services back and up and running over the last few days, Fraser has warned residents against attempting to return before the evacuation order lifts Monday morning.

"You'll need to top up your fuel, and you'll need to bring a few days of food and essential supplies that you'll need," he told a livestreamed news conference.

Despite the positive update from Fraser on Sunday, the mayor says the community is not yet completely out of danger.

"We will be putting on an evacuation alert because there are still some fires out there," he said. "The conditions around the region are still extremely dry."

On Sunday, the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) said in a video update that wildfire conditions are expected to be volatile over the coming days, as northeast B.C. continues to struggle with significant drought conditions.

"We're going to have some places that will get rain, others will stay dry," Eric Kopetski, a fire behaviour analyst, said in the update.

"In the areas that stay dry, we're expecting to see ... some fairly bigger surface fire, showing that the fire still has lots of potential.

"With the rain, we're going to see many areas and with very subdued fire behaviour ...  however, we're still in very severe drought in this area and it's causing really significant challenges to our firefighters."

In addition to the Parker Lake wildfire, firefighters are also working to tackle the much larger Patry Creek wildfire around 25 kilometres north of the community, a holdover fire which first started in 2023.

"The summer is going to be a long one. I think it's had an early start again," said Hugh Murdoch, a BCWS incident commander.

"And there seems to be just so much fire on the landscape so early. It's not just lightning that's going to give us our [fire] starts, but these holdover fires from previous year."