The City of Kamloops says just over 1,000 residents in Dallas, Barnhartvale, and Campbell Creek received an evacuation alert notice through Voyent Alert.

After the Juniper Ridge fire on July 1, staff had made it a priority to get the city onto that alert system as soon as possible.

Kamloops residents are being encouraged to download the app and to sign up with a TNRD account.

That’s because the City of Kamloops’s account with the app isn’t up and running yet. However, staff say residents can still get notified from the city if they sign up, noting all TNRD registrants who live within the City of Kamloops boundaries will be moved over this fall.

Byron McCorkell, the deputy director of the emergency operations centre, says a lot of work went on behind the scenes to get the system going in some form.

“We’ve been working directly with Voyent ourselves now. We did a messaging last night when 8,000 people received the (alert) notice,” he told NL News. “So the system works, and it’s just another form of being able to tell people what’s going on in a timely way.”

The evacuation alert affecting about 8,000 residents covers 2,567 properties, a full list of which can be found here. There is no change to the alert status this morning.

McCorkell says it is an “unprecedented situation,” with both the White Rock Lake fire and Tremont Creek fire posing a potential risk to the City, though neither fire is burning towards the city as of Friday morning.

“But they are both volatile, as far as we don’t know for sure what they’re going to do. So people need to be aware of that,” he added. “They need to be vigilant about keeping informed, using whatever methods they can. Internet, media.”

“And as I say, we now have the Voyent messaging system, where if something needs to happen it will come out quickly.”

Meanwhile, the TNRD issued 676 new evacuation orders last night and 117 new alerts. The order area covers Barnhartvale, east of Kamloops city limits to Pritchard and Pillar Lake, and more details can be found here.

Those orders and alerts came as the White Rock Lake fire grew significantly, from 32,500 hectares to now 45,000 hectares. The fire destroyed much of Monte Lake and Paxton Valley Thursday night.