The Thompson-Nicola Regional District is calling on the BC Wildfire Service to bring in a campfire ban across the Kamloops Fire Centre ahead of the May long weekend.
Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer brought forward the motion calling for the ban, saying while the BC Wildfire Service classifies the fire danger rating in the area as moderate to high, he believes the threat of a fire is higher than that.
“I’m going to suggest that we are in an extreme range,” he said. “The forecast is calling for thunderstorms with not a lot of rain and with those thunderstorms possibly we could get lightning and so honestly, I think we should be proactive not reactive.”
Stamer brought forward the motion at this afternoon’s TNRD board meeting. He said people have the option of propane barbecues rather than wood-fired campfires if they want to spend time outdoors.
“It is bad enough with cigarettes, we don’t really need to have campfires,” he said.
“Even if we have not the temperatures as high as they’ve been the last few days, we’re going to have wind, we’re going to have thunderstorms. We could have lightning. We could have all the right mixes to have a catastrophic event, and with all this smoke out here, we might not even know where the fire is until its too late.”
With warm, dry weather posing a risk across the Southern Interior, the TNRD will be reaching out to other regional districts in the Kamloops Fire Centre, hoping to get support in its call for the ban.
“If you look at the numbers right now and you look at the relative humidity, it is incredibly dry in the Okanagan as well,” Stamer said. “To me, I’m just thinking that if I was looking at this data, and looking at what is going on on the ground, I would think those conditions are high to extreme, if not extreme.”
“The comment that I heard on the radio when [the Wildfire Service said the fire danger rating was] moderate to high is incorrect.”
Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell and Ashcroft Mayor Barbara Roden – who is also chair of the TNRD Board – both raised concerns about the lack of a campfire ban ahead of the Canada Day long weekend in 2021. That was when the Kamloops-area was experiencing record high temperatures during the so-called heat dome.
In 2022, a campfire ban was enacted on Aug. 4. In 2021, the ban started on June 30. There were no campfire bans in the summers of 2020 and 2019.
Blackwell also noted that the BC Wildfire Service has been consolidating its crews out of the North Thompson Valley and into the Kamloops area. He says it makes it even more critical that the TNRD be proactive in asking for a campfire ban.
A provincial ban on larger fires came into effect at noon today, but Barriere has had a total fire ban since Monday. The Wildfire Service says a campfire ban will go into effect throughout the Prince George Fire Centre as of noon tomorrow, May 19.
Multiple factors are taken into consideration when assessing whether to implement a campfire ban:
🌦️Current and forecast weather conditions
💪Resource capacity
🌱Buildup Index (BUI)
For more info on fire weather indices, visit: https://t.co/FeY02KcdfR— BC Wildfire Service (@BCGovFireInfo) May 18, 2023
As it stands, campfires that are no larger than 0.5 metres in height and 0.5 metres in diameter will still be permitted in the Cariboo, Coastal, Kamloops, Northwest, and Southeast Fire Centres.
For the latest on fire bans and restrictions in B.C., go here.