When Walker Adair heard about the wildfire in the park near his home in suburban Vancouver, he set out to look for it.

The Belcarra resident traced the fire’s location Wednesday afternoon through videos on social media and drove toward the flames, arriving nearby as firefighters had just begun their efforts to douse it. The 1.5-hectare fire was torching Belcarra Regional Park, a municipal wilderness park across Burrard Inlet in the Vancouver area.

The flames were coming dangerously close to the village of Anmore, B.C., causing officials to evacuate two homes and place 35 properties under evacuation alert before the wildfire service declared it held Thursday afternoon.

“It was sobering to see smoke rising directly behind the mansions in the neighbourhood,” Mr. Adair said.

Out of control wildfires continue to blaze across the southern Interior of British Columbia, with hot and dry conditions expected to increase fire activity for the next few days.

In the South Cariboo region, at least 120 properties have been lost near Clinton owing to the Pear Lake wildfire, which has now grown to 126,000 hectares. In the North Okanagan, just outside of Vernon, 230 homes have been destroyed and thousands remain under evacuation order.

Along the shores of Okanagan Lake, properties were being evacuated Thursday owing to increased fire activity, with more than 2,600 evacuees from the Quilpituk Creek wildfire alone.

On Wednesday, less than three kilometres from the Belcarra wildfire, helicopters plunged into Buntzen Lake to get water.

The lake, a popular recreation site, was busy, Jennifer Jung, the owner of a boat rental shop, said.

Ms. Jung was told to evacuate in the afternoon, and within the hour everyone was off the water, she said.

She offered refunds to all the customers who were asked to leave and got herself ready to evacuate from her Anmore-based store.

“It was really scary,” she said. “It spread right away, and it happened in Anmore.”

Brant Arnold-Smith, the wildfire incident commander with Metro Vancouver, told a briefing Thursday that fire crews encountered downed power lines at the scene of the Belcarra fire, the first substantial blaze in Metro Vancouver this wildfire season. The fire is thought to have been caused by human activity.

Anmore Mayor John McEwan said 40 of the village’s volunteer firefighters responded to the wildfire, working with multiple fire departments to beat back the flames.

He said there was some difficulty in figuring out who was in charge with several departments showing up to help.

“At the start of it, it was just sort of agreed upon, let’s worry about that later, and let’s all join forces to put this out,” he said.

“The teams did an absolutely amazing job of doing that.”

Mr. McEwan said the local government and Metro Vancouver, which is ultimately responsible for managing the wildfire, needed to be “a little bit more forthright” with communication. He said that false information was spreading through social media.

Mr. Adair agreed there was early confusion, with neither the nearby city of Port Moody or the village of Anmore providing updates.

“Everybody was saying something different, so you didn’t really know who to believe or what to believe,” he said.

Premier David Eby was in Abbotsford, B.C., to welcome 200 firefighters from Mexico on Thursday and said stories of “heroism and mutual support” were arising from wildfire battles across the province.

“There are literally thousands of people across the province that are stepping up to help out those who are evacuated … and those who are facing the threat of forest fire,” he told a news conference at the Abbotsford airport.

There were 105 active wildfires across the province, with 49 classified as out of control and 32 evacuation orders in place as of Thursday, according to BC Wildfire Service.

Some of the approximately 500 evacuees in the Fraser Canyon have begun to return home after several weeks, with the downgrading of evacuation orders in and around Boston Bar.

A boil-water advisory remains in place, with the district saying people returning home should bring plenty of food and bottled water along with cleaning supplies, a first aid kit and a camera to document any damage at their properties.

In the East Kootenay region, all of the evacuation orders and alerts related to the Wait Creek fire burning east of Kimberley, B.C., have been rescinded.

With reports from The Canadian Press