The chief information officer for the BC Wildfire Service says it’s been an average first quarter of 2019 for wildfires.
Kevin Skrepnek says there have been a number of fires that have already burned across the province this year, but none have been too concerning to firefighters.
In fact, the number of fires so far in 2019 is right on par with the ten year average.
“We’re quite a bit below in terms of the hectares burnt and that’s because of years like 2016 where we had a very, very busy April,” he said. “That’s kind of skewed the statistics a bit. I would characterize this as a fairly normal spring so far, maybe even leaning towards a little slower than normal.”
Skrepnek adds crews are hoping for a good amount of rain later in May and into June, which could define how the rest of the season will be.
“And that’s kind of our rainy period. Those June rains usually last until the Canada Day long weekend, so we can have a busy season at this time of year, we get that rain, and then the summer is fairly orderly,” he said. “At the same time, it can not be all that busy this time of year which is what we’ve seen so far.”
“If we don’t get that June rain, that really sets the stage for a busy summer which is pretty much exactly what we saw in 2017.”
Looking ahead to the next four months, Skrepnek says if you look at the fire danger rating, you could almost cut the province in two.
“The eastern half of the province you know, fairly low if not very low fire danger rating, so it’s a little cooler, a little wetter,”he said. “The western half of the province we’re into that moderate, even some pockets of high so that’s obviously very dependent on the weather, so we keep a really close eye on that right from now until October.”
Most of the wildfires that have burned so far this year are believed to be human caused because of the relatively low chance of lightning strikes at this time of the year.
Skrepnek says all of those human caused wildfires are preventable.