Thousands of residents were ordered out of their homes Sunday night as a forest fire edged closer to Lillooet, B.C. (B.C. Wildfire Management Branch)A 33-square-kilometre blaze that's forced thousands of residents in the town of Lillooet, B.C., out of their homes continued to spread Monday.

The fire, initially estimated at 2,650 hectares in size, jumped to 3,333 hectares Monday afternoon and officials said the fire would likely continue to grow, fuelled by high winds and dry debris on the forest floor.

The fire, discovered last Wednesday, is now burning less than one kilometre away from Lillooet, and the fire's front grew Sunday night to about two kilometres in width.

More than 2,000 people in the town of Lillooet and the surrounding area were ordered out of their homes Sunday night as the fire drew closer.

Officials said the entire District of Lillooet west of the Fraser River, as well as the surrounding First Nations communities, are under an evacuation order.

About 100 residents stayed behind, refusing to leave their homes despite the evacuation order.

An expanded evacuation alert was also issued for the Municipal District of Lillooet east of the Fraser River and Bridge River. Those residents were being told to be ready to leave their homes at a moment's notice.

The fire is about a kilometre from Lillooet, with a front edge two kilometres wide. (Submitted by Marc Hadford)Early Monday morning, a wall of flames could be seen near Lillooet jumping as high as 100 metres in the air.

The flames calmed down later in the morning and the fire became harder to see as a thick blanket of smoke covered the area and ash fell from the sky.

Officials expected Monday to be a challenging day for the 60 firefighters and 15 helicopters battling the blaze as winds were forecast to pick up throughout the afternoon.

Resident Kevin Raynes told CBC News conditions "couldn't be any worse."

"I mean, we went into this fire with probably a month of next to nothing for rain and almost a week of 40 C temperatures… and then you get the odd thunderstorm rolling through with the winds and the fire does what it wants to do."

The district is hosting a town hall meeting Monday at 7:30 p.m. PT at the Clocktower Building at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, about 110 kilometres east of Lillooet.

2,500 still on evacuation order in Okanagan

Meanwhile, about 2,500 residents living along Okanagan Lake spent a second night out of their homes because of the rapidly growing fire at Terrace Mountain.

The Okanagan Lake evacuation order came just days after residents had returned from an earlier evacuation order.

The fire, near Fintry, was 90 per cent contained when high winds pushed it over the fireguard Sunday.

Officials estimated that fire is now less than 30 per cent contained.

3 more fires burn in B.C.

Yet another fire broke out on Blackcomb Mountain on Monday evening, in an area known as the Ruby Bowl.

Officials estimated the blaze covered about five hectares, and said it appeared to be diminishing in size due to air and ground efforts to extinguish it.

The fire comes just days after a 30-hectare blaze on Blackcomb Mountain last Thursday forced the evacuation of nearby lodges.

Still another fire has forced an evacuation that involves 120 residents of the community of Brookmere, about 120 kilometres south of Kamloops.

In B.C.'s Cariboo Region, Highway 20, connecting Williams Lake to the coast, was closed for much of Monday because of a further forest fire.

Smoke billows along Highway 20 from a fire near Alexis Creek in B.C.'s Cariboo Region on Saturday. (Submitted by Candice Wilson)That fire has also forced the evacuation of all 130 residents in the community of Alexis Creek.

About 238 kilometres east of Alexis Creek, a state of emergency has been declared in Bella Coola. The only road access to the coastal community has been severed by the closure of Highway 20. In addition, several nearby fires have forced the evacuation of 50 residences.

Scorching temperatures in B.C. have left the forests extremely dry, making it easy for fires to spread.

There have been almost 2,100 fires so far this season, burning about 550 square kilometres of forest.

The vast majority were caused by lightning.

With files from The Canadian Press