A video of forest fires in Canada has revealed the frightening pace at which the blazes can move.

The recording was made in British Columbia on August 15 and shows a fire as it burns through a forest hundreds of metres away from a group of firefighters.

The man taking the video points out the blaze as it approaches, building from a billow of smoke into a wall of orange and purple flames in under a minute.

“My eyes are burning and watering, those are spot fires coming over the hill right there,” he can be heard, on the video.

“Wow look at that, that is a huge wall of fire coming towards us.

“We got 1000 foot flame licks.”

As the blaze gets closer the man tells the camera he can feel the heat coming off the fire, before the crew of firefighters are forced to retreat away from the flames to a “safety zone”.