TELKWA, B.C. - A forest fire crew battled rising flood waters rather than flames Thursday as northern British Columbians fought feverishly to hold back rising flood waters near Smithers.
The crew filled sandbags in a hurried effort to construct a dike high enough to keep out a 200-year record level of the Bulkley River.
The river hadn't spilled over that much Thursday, but crew chief Kathryn Sikkes said they need to be prepared.
As the firefighters worked, rescue workers wearing lifejackets were on standby in case one of them fell into the raging water.
Jim Whyte, director of operations at PEP -- the provincial emergency program -- said residents living in 120 homes in the northwest region of the province have been evacuated.
"They're going to be out of their homes for probably seven to 10 days minimum,'' Whyte said.
"The water's still roaring through there. It's still at or near its peak flow, there's no opportunity to get damage assessment teams in there.
"It's probably not as severe as it could have been but if it was your home that got flooded, trust me. It's severe. It's really a devastating situation to have your home flooded and to have to return to that.''
People living in about 1,100 homes near the province's river systems have been on alert all week as the record snowpack in the mountains melts, sending a deluge of water into the rivers.
Telkwa Mayor Sharon Hartwell looked up at the snow-covered mountains surrounding her Bulkley Valley community and said she hopes a heat wave or heavy rainfall doesn't send a torrent of water into her community of 1,400 people.
She said residents estimate there are still up to three metres of snow on the mountains near the community.
"They were still snowmobiling up there a week ago and the snow was at the roof of the cabins,'' she said Thursday.
East of Telkwa, the community of Terrace remained cut off except by air as the only highway in and out was blocked by a mudslide on one side of town and flooding on the other.
Farther west along the blocked Highway 16 in Prince Rupert, Mayor Herb Pond urged residents to keep their cool.
People jammed stores and gas stations in an effort to stock up on essentials, but Pond said merchants are assuring residents there's no reason for panic.
"We do need to be psychologically prepared for the road being unavailable for the next week perhaps,'' he said.
"There's no predicting what Mother Nature is going to do here.''
While the north-central part of the province around Prince George, Smithers, Terrace and Telkwa have had varying degrees of emergency all week, the flood risk on Thursday started to rise in the Kootenays.
A flood warning was issued for the Columbia River in the Golden area, just west of the Alberta boundary. But Mayor Jim Doyle said he wasn't too worried.
"It's (the river) starting to rise as the warm weather and all the creeks and snow melts up in the hills. So it's a bit of a concern there,'' he said. "But as we stand today. . . we're not feeling any undue pressure right now as a community.''
The River Forecast Centre has said the Columbia will reach 10-year record levels and continue to rise.
But the centre was predicting slightly better conditions for the Fraser Valley. The centre estimated the Fraser will peak at the mid-six metre range by Monday at the latest.
That's almost a metre below earlier predictions and it means severe flooding is less likely.
But the 6.5-metre high is still high enough to swamp residents living between dikes and the river, and residents of the Abbotsford community of Glen Valley remained on evacuation alert.
Abbotsford expected to issue evacuation orders if the Fraser River reaches the 6.3-metre mark.
Harvey Sasaki, assistant deputy minister in the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, said 39 of 48 farms in the Abbotsford area have applied for help to remove animals in case of flooding.
He said about 2,000 animals have already been moved and 700 animals on one farm are about to be relocated.
The Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Port Coquitlam moved 160 people to higher ground Thursday.
