A routine mountain hike nearly turned into tragedy for three people in British Columbia, Canada, where wildfires are raging.

The three hikers were trapped in the fire, unable to find a way out.

“I could have died,” one of them told the BBC.

In the end everything went well after a helicopter managed to locate them and rescue them.

Massive wildfires in Canada have been raging out of control for days, prompting British Columbia’s Northwest Territories to declare a state of emergency. Tens of thousands of residents were evacuated even by military planes.

Residents of Yellowknife, the Northwest’s largest city, were ordered on Wednesday to evacuate by Friday as the city is now under serious threat due to the spread of wildfires.

“Unfortunately, the bushfire situation has taken a turn for the worse (…) west of Yellowknife” and there is now a “real threat” to citizens, said Shane Thompson, minister for the environment in the Northwest Territories, ordering the evacuation of city ​​of 20,000 inhabitants until tomorrow at noon.

“It breaks my heart to think of the people in TNO who are struggling with the devastating forest fires,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the X network (formerly Twitter).

Canada, which due to its geographical location, is warming faster than the rest of the planet, has been faced in recent years with extreme weather events, the intensity and frequency of which are increasing due to climate warming.