Wildfires trigger evacuation alerts in B.C. [Video]

Cariboo, B.C. –

Susanne Langan first noticed the Burgess Creek wildfire from the mine where she works in British Columbia’s Cariboo region as a distant, thin column of smoke.

But as winds picked up at her home on Saturday night, the flames became more aggressive.

“I could see lots of trees going up like Roman candles … There was certainly lots of smoke rising from it,” said Langan, who works as an equipment operator at Mount Polley Mine, about 50 kilometres north of Williams Lake.

Langan, who says she has lived “off the grid” in the area for 39 years, is among a handful of Cariboo residents put under evacuation alert and told to be ready to leave at short notice, as fears of an early start to the B.C. and Alberta wildfire seasons materialized.

In addition to the 1,600-hectare Burgess Creek fire about 600 kilometres north of Vancouver, the tiny town of …