Around 30,000 people were under orders Saturday to evacuate their homes in western Canada's British Columbia, provincial officials said, as a raging wildfire bore down on the city of Kelowna.

"The situation is highly dynamic and the numbers are changing all the time, but as of now we are currently hovering at about 30,000 people on evacuation order and an additional 36,000 people on evacuation alert," said Bowinn Ma, British Columbia's minister of emergency management and climate readiness.

On Thursday air evacuations began to move residents in the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories out of the path of wildfires that neared the city of 20,000 people.

People in the four areas of Yellowknife at highest risk should leave as soon as possible and residents in other areas have until noon Friday to leave, the Northwest Territories government said on Thursday.

Half of the population in the Northwest Territories has been already displaced by the fires, BBC News reported, citing a Friday federal update. Thousands of people have fled fires, driving hundreds of miles to safety or waiting in long lines for emergency flights, as the worst fire season on record in Canada showed no signs of easing.

Canada has seen a record number of wildfires this year — contributing to choking smoke in parts of the U.S. — with more than 5,700 fires burning more than 137,000 square kilometers (53,000 square miles) from one end of Canada to the other, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

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