B.C.'s campfire is now in effect for all of the province, except Haida Gwaii.
The ban, which was announced Tuesday during a provincewide heatwave, went into effect at noon on Friday (July 12). It remains in effect until further notice.
BC Wildfire Service says the ban is to help prevent human-caused wildfires and protect public safety.
It's in addition to the current provincewide bans for category 2 and 3 fires, meaning open fires of any size, except for those licensed for prescribed burns.
A new release from B.C.'s Emergency Management Ministry says that much of the province has seen "very hot, and sometimes record-breaking, temperatures over the past week."
Dozens of temperature records – including one record low temperature – were reported by Environment Canada through the week. It prompted Environment Canada to issue heat warnings for several regions.
"While heat warnings have been lifted in some areas, the hot weather is predicted to continue for parts of the province, combined with the risk of high winds and lightning," the ministry's release adds.
BC Wildfire Service provincial operations manager Cliff Chapman said during a wildfire update Thursday that rain is not expected anywhere in B.C. for at least the next 10 days.
He said a cold front did come through the northern part of the province, and it did come with some rain in the north where some of B.C.'s larger fires have been burning in recent weeks. There weren't significant winds, though.
But that rain and cold front did also come with some lightning in other regions.
"We did also see, through, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 13,000 lightning strikes that came with the convective activity from that cold front."
The next 72 hours and even beyond, Chapman said, the BC Wildfire Service is "really going to have to ensure that our detection aircraft and our detection sources, which include the public of B.C., are active and out in the wilderness to make sure that we can pick up any new starts that come from those fires."
He said given the forecast for continued dry weather, there is potential for those lightning strikes to hold over. A holdover fire is one that can be dormant and undetected, and is typical with lightning-caused fires.
Lightning is typically the main source of fire starts as B.C. moves into July and August during the wildfire season, Chapman said.
