Berlin, 19 August 2023 (dpa/MIA) - A state of emergency has been declared in Canada's British Columbia province as devastating forest fires continued to tear through the region on Friday.

British Columbia Premier David Eby made the announcement for the entire province on the Pacific coast on Friday evening on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Earlier, several houses and flats around the popular tourist city of West Kelowna on Okanagan Lake, had been engulfed by the blaze.

A state of emergency had already been declared for the city, which is home to 36,000 people.

The city of Kelowna, with a population of almost 150,000 on the opposite side of the lake, is also affected by the fires. According to authorities, the fires are expected to spread even further.

Across the province, 15,000 people have been asked to leave their homes. An evacuation warning was in place for more than 20,000 other people.

Fierce forest fires were also raging in Canada's neighbouring Northwest Territories.

Canada has been battling wildfires in several parts of the country for months. Forest fires are an annual phenomenon in many parts of Canada, and, occasionally,force people to be evacuated.

This year, however, it is the worst known wildfire season in the country's history.

In view of ever-worsening climate change, experts warn that fires will occur more frequently and be more destructive. In the prairie provinces of western Canada, the average temperature has risen by 1.9 degrees Celsius since the middle of the 20th century, according to the Department of Environment and Climate Change.