UPDATE: 2 p.m.
A wildfire burning beside Highway 1 is now 'being held' as of Monday afternoon.
BC Wildfire Service says the wildfire is burning rank 1 and rank two, meaning the ground is smouldering and it is a low vigour surface fire.
The fire is still visible from the Highway between Cheam View and Laidlaw.
Drive BC says the eastbound right lane on Highway 1 continues to be blocked due to the fire.
Power has been restored to nearly 6,000 customers after a tree fell on a wire and BC Hydro deenergized a portion of their transmission line so firefighters could work on the fire.
The suspected cause is human caused at this time.
ORIGINAL: 11 a.m.
A wildfire burning "out-of-control" beside Highway 1 west of Hope, B.C., backed up traffic and triggered power outages for 5,580 people Monday.
Three separate outages all began at 10:23 a.m. They span both sides of Lougheed Highway west of Hope, stretch north as far as Yale, and southeast as far as Manning Park.
BC Hydro spokesperson Susie Rieder says a tree came down on one of their wires.
"The BC Wildfire Service also asked us to deenergize a portion of our transmission line while they work on the fire near our right-of-way," says Rieder. "This has resulted in an outage affecting almost 6000 customers."
She said as of 12:20 p.m. that power is expected to return within an hour.
The wildfire is within the Popkum Fire Department's jurisdiction at less than 10 kilometres away from Popkum, an unincorporated community between Chilliwack and Hope. The human-caused wildfire is estimated at one hectare in size and was discovered at 6:30 a.m. on July 15, 2024.
A BCWS spokesperson says two initial attack crews and a single resource officer are on the scene.
"This fire is very visible from the highway,” says a BCWS spokesperson.
Fire information officer Sam Bellion says a helicopter is bucketing water over the fire.
A "birddog" airplane also flew above the fire to get photographs and assess the wildfire.
Highway 1 eastbound right lane is blocked between Exit 146 at Herrling Island Road exit and Exit 151 at Peters Road exit due to the fire.
"Crews on scene. Drive with caution in the area. Expect major delays,” says a Drive BC spokesperson.
The next update from Drive BC is expected at 3 p.m. on July 15.
