VANCOUVER, Canada (AP) — As tens of thousands of people were under evacuation orders in British Columbia and firefighters battled wildfires raging across Canada on Sunday, fire chiefs from a region often a summer destination for families reported making progress in the fight.

Finally “a little glimmer of hope is on the horizon,” West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Broland said at a news conference regarding progress in the South’s Okanagan Lake region. of British Columbia, a region of picturesque tourist towns surrounded by mountains.

“The weather allowed us to move forward,” he said, adding that teams were able to implement more traditional suppression techniques, such as extinguishing the most problematic sites.

If “conditions stay as they are,” he said, fire crews will begin to see “real progress in a measurable way.” And it’s finally a little glimmer of hope for us.

Meanwhile, hundreds of fires continue to rage in British Columbia and 35,000 people were under evacuation orders as of Sunday.

The situation “remains very dynamic,” said Jerrad Schroeder, chief of the British Columbia Wildfire Service. “There are still parts of this fire that we haven’t prioritized.”

The provincial government declared a state of emergency and urged people not to travel for non-essential reasons to the central interior or southeast of the province due to “significant” travel activity. forest fires.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced approval of British Columbia’s request for federal aid and said the government was deploying Canadian Armed Forces resources to support evacuations.

“We will continue here with all the necessary support,” he posted on the social network X, formerly called Twitter.

Canada has seen a record number of wildfires this year, which have also brought choking smoke to parts of the United States. In total, there were more than 5,700 fires, burning more than 137,000 square kilometers (53,000 square miles) across Canada, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. There are still more than 1,000 active fires in the country, according to the agency.

In northern Canada, firefighters continued to battle a fire that threatened Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories.

Fire information officer Mike Westwick said the fire persisted about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the town, which remained virtually empty after almost all of its 20,000 residents fled to get to safety.

“Even though things dried up and the fires grew, we were able to do a good job of aerial suppression and limit the advance,” he said in a meeting with reporters Sunday evening.

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Haigh reported from Norwich, Connecticut.