Evacuation order as Vancouver Island district declares flood emergency

Crews had to jump into action on Vancouver Island to rescue people and animals trapped by flooding Friday.

A state of local emergency has been declared in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, with drenching rain prompting an order to evacuate a campground and nearby properties due to rising floodwaters.

The Comox Valley Regional District ordered people in the Maple Pool Campground and 12 other properties to leave “due to the immediate danger to life safety caused by flooding.”

It warns people to avoid flood-prone areas and says high river flows are expected across the coastal region over the next few days due to heavy rain and snowmelt.

The district says it has opened an emergency operations centre to co-ordinate the response.

The evacuation order came after B.C.’s River Forecast Centre issued a flood warning for Dove Creek and the Tsolum and Courtenay rivers.

It also issued a flood watch that was activated for the Englishman River near Parksville and several others near Port Alberni.

“Based on the current hydrological modelling, streamflows in the above regions are expected to rise significantly today into tomorrow,” the centre’s Friday flood warning for the region said.

“Very localized heavy rainfall has caused the river level in the Dove Creek to rise significantly overnight and the Water Survey of Canaday hydrometric station … has recorded a flow of 161 cubic metres per second, which is a flow greater than the 100-year return period.”

The warning said that additional runoff from snowmelt is also expected to contribute to flood risks, as temperatures “are expected to remain seasonally warm” in the current rainy weather with “freezing levels rising to 1,500 to 2,000 metres.”

It noted that prolonged periods of moderate to heavy rain are possible, with rainfall totals possibly reaching 200 millimetres in a three-day period that started earlier this week.

The rest of the island remained under a high streamflow advisory Friday along with Haida Gwaii and parts of the mainland.

Environment Canada on Friday issued its own warnings, saying at one point that the west coast of Vancouver Island including communities such as Tofino, Ucluelet, Bamfield, Zeballos and Tahsis were forecasted to see precipitation of up to 140 millimetres.

Some of the rainfall warnings have since been lifted.

The weather agency’s data showed that Port Alberni recorded more than 50 millimetres of rain on Thursday while Tofino reported about 47 millimetres of precipitation.

The rainfall warning also covered a stretch of Highway 4 linking Tofino and Ucluelet to the rest of Vancouver Island, and Environment Canada has highlighted the higher risk for landslides — especially in deforested or recently burned areas.

The Bamfield area had been hard hit by wildfire last year with the Mount Underwood blaze that started in August, which closed the community’s main road link to Port Alberni for months as crews worked to repair fire damage and stabilize the land.

The provincial government’s DriveBC information system said Friday that the heavy rain has caused another stretch of highway on Vancouver Island — Highway 28 from Campbell River to Gold River — to close due to washouts.

This report by Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press, was first published Jan. 30, 2026.