As the weekend arrives, temperatures increase, and wildfire starts begin to flare up again B.C.’s Forests minister is asking people to be careful.
Doug Donaldson says as the dog days of summer begin to arrive and the fire risk increases people in the outdoors need to be cautious.
“Well I certainly do not want people to get complacent. We haven’t seen a big uptick yet in wildfires but we are paying close attention to the weather predictions and we are looking at some lightning storms coming through in the next few days in the interior. We want to make sure that people know conditions are still dry out there. We have made a lot of changes from the previous couple of years in terms of preparedness but it is still a very high risk situation.”
Donaldson says more enforcement is needed to prevent human caused fires like the 575 dollar fine handed out recently in Victoria for tossing a cigarette butt out the window.
“It is a good reminder that too many fires are human caused. I am not saying that they are intentional but playing with a lighter or doing work in the yard and accidentally causing a fire those are the kind of human caused things we really have to cut down on. Our Wildfire Service, our volunteers, and our community contractors have enough on their hands with lightning strikes we don’t need human caused fires.”
He says for those enjoying the outdoors this weekend they should be very careful and be up to speed on any campfire bans where ever they are.
As of Friday afternoon there were 27 active fires in the province, up from 17 in the morning.
BC Wildfire Service stats say there have been 302 fires in the province year to date with 41% of those fires being human caused.
11 of the fire starts burning today are person caused.