LILLOET, British Columbia, June 9 (UPI) -- A wildfire in Canada's British Columbia has grown to about 15,000 acres, officials said Tuesday.
The Lillooet fire, fanned by strong winds, grew by 50 percent in the previous 24 hours and was still out of control, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The fire in the province's Cariboo Region is headed eastward toward Marshall Lake in the Bridge River Valley.
"It's challenging because of the steep terrain in this area and it's complex in that the winds are so unpredictable and tend to come from many different directions at the same time," said Mary Ann Leach, a fire information officer with the Kamloops Fire Center.
More than 200 firefighters, 13 helicopters and 46 pieces of heavy equipment are fighting the blaze, which started May 29, and areas ahead of the fire line are being evacuated as warranted, the CBC said. Highway 40 is closed in the region.
Another wildfire near the British Columbia-Yukon border also continues to burn, having blackened about 33,000 acres, but has not expanded.
A third, smaller, fire also is burning southeast of Kelowna in the Bellevue Canyon area. That blaze has burned about seven hectares.
