At 9:45 p.m., the skies over Prince George lit up with orange as the Lakeland Mills site at the CN rail yard exploded.
According to unverified accounts there are 20 people that are still unaccounted.
Another unverified source at the mill site said the possible source of the explosion may have originated at the Lakeland Mills energy plant.
Allegedly, flames shot out of an area that holds sawdust used at the plant.
Police are telling people to stay out of the downtown Prince George area to give room for the emergency crews to get in.
Several accounts from witnesses of the blast say they felt the explosion from their houses from as far away as Central Street.
The streets on 1st Avenue were lined with parked cars and people standing on the roofs of nearby building all trying to get a first-hand look at the blaze.
"I thought it was an earthquake, then I yelled at people to get out. Then the walls started collapsing," said a source at Lakeland Mills, too upset to speak to the newspaper. "Nobody gives a [expletive] about talking to reporters right now, we're trying to help people."
"The explosion in Prince George sounded like someone kicking our door. We saw neighbours checking their houses and knew something was up," tweeted Matthew Braun on Twitter (@matthewbraun1).
A code orange was declared at the University Hospital of Northern B.C.,, fearing casualities.
The same alert was issued after the Babine Forest Products explosion.
"I'm standing in front of the fire and it's obvious massive. Our main priority is to determine how many people are in the building," said RCMP spokesman, Cpl. Craig Douglas.
"My dad has worked there forever, so I'm a little shaky," said a young woman (who didn't want her name published) that was standing on 1st Avenue in front of the Citizen building. "I just spoke to him and he wasn't working tonight but it hits close to home," she said.
"I heard there was a fire [at the mill] last night," said another witness.
Glen Thielmann on Twitter said,"Someone living the Millar Addition felt their whole house shake and it sucked our window shut."
The Prince George Regional airport has allegedly been shut down.
Lakeland Mills was the site of a fire in February that took all morning to put out entirely.
"There is a collection area for sawdust, a building called the bag house," said deputy fire chief John Iverson. "There was a fire in the building, but there was no equipment in there, no damage, nobody in danger of injury, just dust and sawdust burning.:
"The main fire was out quickly, The majority of the time was spent dousing any doubts that it would flare back up later."Video can be found at http://youtu.be/eXbew_pWZcE
