B.C. police launch wildfire arson investigations, as blazes raise trauma in Shuswap

Terry Evans was driving home from picking up groceries with his wife on the north shore of Shuswap Lake on Wednesday when they spotted a fire in a ditch and several residents scrambling to bring water to douse it.

Within 30 seconds, the flames had engulfed a cedar tree, he said.

It was one of five fires in the area that evening that the Columbia Shuswap Regional District said were suspicious and under investigation by RCMP.

“People are having a hard time sleeping at night thinking that there might still be somebody out there with this on their mind,” Evans said in an interview on Friday.

Evans said he parked his truck and ran up to a woman who kicked through her fence and passed him her garden hose to do what they could to slow the fire’s spread.

By the time Evans got to the tree, firefighters had arrived, and the fire was later extinguished, as were the other four blazes.

Police were also looking into this week’s wildfire in a Metro Vancouver regional park, along with a series of fires in an urban park in Kelowna, B.C.

The possible arson incidents come as evacuation orders expand and firefighters warn of increased risk as lightning strikes parts of B.C.’s hot, dry Interior, where raging fires have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands to flee.

Evans said it was a “mystery” how the Shuswap brush fires started within a short time span in the Anglemont area, about 110 kilometres northeast of Kamloops, B.C.

But he said they stirred trauma among residents who recall the ferocious blaze that destroyed more than 170 structures in the area in 2023.

“I can’t understand why anybody would do this in a place that’s so volatile to begin with and is full of such trauma that remains, PTSD, from what has happened in the past,” he said. 

Evans said the fires in 2023 were “a slap in the face pretty hard,” prompting him and his wife to take fireproofing measures at their property. The couple is based in Edmonton but visits their Anglemont home throughout the year, he said.

The regional district said three of Wednesday’s fires, spaced about 100 metres apart in a roadside ditch, were called in at about 5:30 p.m., while two more were reported in the Anglemont Estates area soon after.

The fires were extinguished and crews conducted “tactical patrols” in the area throughout the night, the district said in a statement.

There were some “very angry people in the community,” Evans added. 

The Celisa Fire Department, located west of Anglemont on the north shore of Shuswap Lake, said in a Facebook post on Friday that firefighters had separately responded to three grass fires in the Scotch Creek area.

“The fires are out thanks to some people passing by and some residents close by. RCMP are on scene at this point,” the department said in its post.

“We don’t know if these fires are related to the ones on Wednesday or if they are caused by a spark from a passing vehicle,” it said. 

The department also asked people not to make assumptions about the latest fires, saying “there is nothing pointing to anyone in particular.”

Still, it said anyone with dash-camera footage from the area around 12:30 p.m. should contact the RCMP. 

In Metro Vancouver, meanwhile, Coquitlam RCMP have asked for witnesses or those with video from the Belcarra Regional Park area on Wednesday to come forward, saying the cause of the wildfire there this week was under investigation.

The blaze triggered this season’s first evacuation alerts for Metro Vancouver in the village of Anmore, about 30 kilometres east of Vancouver. 

Police want anyone who was in the area between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Wednesday and may have dash camera, cellphone or surveillance footage to contact them.

A fire now listed as under control in Belcarra Regional Park is pictured in this Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026, handout photo provided by the BC Wildfire Service. Coquitlam RCMP have asked for witnesses and anyone with video footage to come forward as they investigate the cause of the blaze.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout — BC Wildfire Service (Mandatory Credit)

RCMP in Kelowna were also investigating a series of fires believed to have been set intentionally at an urban park.

A statement from the Mounties said officers and firefighters responded to several small fires in the Black Mountain area near Gopher Creek Linear Park, east of the city centre, at about 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Residents and people in the park acted quickly to extinguish the blazes, which were close to each other, police said.

The province’s southern Interior has been hardest hit by a recent surge in fire activity, with strong winds last weekend whipping up the Bradley Creek blaze that destroyed at least 230 homes on the western shore of Okanagan Lake.

To the south, the Central Okanangan emergency management centre said officials were aware that some residents had chosen to remain in areas subject to evacuation orders due to the Quilpituk Creek wildfire.

“If you are in an Evacuation Order area, leave now. An evacuation order is not a suggestion. It is a life-safety measure,” the centre said in an update on Friday.

An out-of-control blaze near Clinton, B.C., also forced a fresh round of evacuation orders and alerts heading into the weekend.

The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District placed more than 40 additional properties southeast of the massive Pear Lake wildfire on evacuation order on Thursday.

Evacuation alerts were also issued for the Marble Canyon Park and Pavilion Lake areas due to the same fire, which spans more than 1,300 square kilometres. It’s among four out-of-control wildfires of note listed by the BC Wildfire Service.

The fires of note also include the Ainslie Creek blaze, part of the Brunswick complex of fires burning in B.C.’s Fraser Canyon, which prompted expanded orders and alerts stretching to the western outskirts of Merritt, B.C., on Friday as it spreads east.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District issued an evacuation order Friday for properties south of Merritt on the west side of Highway 5.

An evacuation alert also covers more than 780 properties in an expansive area west of Merritt, a city of about 7,000 residents.

The Coldwater Indian Band issued its own evacuation order Friday for properties on the Paul’s Basin reserve, located about 22 kilometres southwest of Merritt, while an alert covers the main Coldwater reserve about 13 kilometres southwest of the city.

An evacuation order was also in effect for the T’it’q’et First Nation’s Towinock reserve due to the Riley Creek fire burning south of Lillooet, B.C.

The BC Wildfire Service warned in an update Friday that weather patterns could produce holdover fires, when the heat from lightning strikes smoulders undetected until hotter, drier and windier conditions fan the flames and produce visible smoke.

More firefighters from other jurisdictions have been arriving in B.C. to combat the blazes.

The Australian and New Zealand National Council for fire and emergency services said 41 firefighters from those two countries had been deployed to B.C., while a fresh wave of 200 personnel from Mexico arrived Thursday.

There were about 100 active wildfires burning in B.C. on Friday, mostly in the southern Interior, with roughly half of them out of control, and more than three-quarters caused by lightning.

The battle involves about 1,600 firefighters and several hundred structure protection personnel.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 7, 2026.

By Brenna Owen | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.