A wildfire expert at Thompson Rivers University is forecasting a busy spring for wildfire crews here in British Columbia.

TRU wildfire professor Mike Flannigan says he is quite concerned about the spring wildfire season after being asked on NL Mornings to rank his prediction for the upcoming wildfire season on a scale of one to 10.

“The dice are loaded for a very active season, so I would 9 out of 10 for spring, and no comment yet on summer.”

The high concern is due to current drought conditions and the dozens of zombie fires continuing to burn through the winter, following last summer’s record-breaking wildfire season.

With new fire starts already beginning in Alberta, which is earlier than normal, Flannigan suggests BC won’t be too far behind.

“The hot spots that burned through winter in the middle of the fire called the black – we aren’t too worried about – because spring comes, the snow melts and they pop up but got nothing to burn,” said Flannigan.

“The hot spots on the edges are the ones we are concerned about because – while we normally clean them up – there are so many big fires like the Donnie Creek, it is impossible to put out all the hot spots along the edge.”

With that, he says if we get warm, dry, and windy conditions, these fires could grow.

“The long-range forecast is for these mild and dry conditions to continue because it is El Nino.”

Flannigan says he still holds hope for the summer, as El Nino is waning – meaning rain could be on the way.

“If we get some June rain, and I go back to 2016, which was also a strong El Nino year and the Fort McMurray fire in May… They then had floods in June from all the rain, so I am still holding hope that maybe we will be like 2016 and June rains will come, hopefully not the flooding.”

As for what the summer wildfire season will look like, Flannigan says it’s still too early to tell. However, he does not anticipate it to be as bad as the 2023 wildfire season.

“Emergency Preparedness Minister was briefed and said 2024 will be as bad as 2023… I would never say anything like that, at least not at this stage. I doubt we will ever see a year like 2023 in the next couple of decades because it was so exceptional.”