Any new wildfire start has the potential to be a challenge for the province, BC Wildfire Service's provincial operations director says.
Cliff Chapman said the province is now proactively preparing for any new wildfire starts, following several days of intense record-breaking temperatures and heat around the province.
"Any new start has the potential to be a challenge for our province and we need to get on them quick and get them out fast," he said during an update with Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma on the current wildfire situation around B.C. on Thursday (July 11).
Dozens of temperature records have been broken in the past few days, and Chapman said that is leading to the whole province experiencing "fairly significant weather."
Chapman added BC Wildfire Service isn't anticipating any rain in B.C. for 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.
As of Thursday morning, there are 149 wildfires burning across B.C., with the majority in the Cariboo and Prince George fire centres.
In the Cariboo Fire Centre, Chapman said BC Wildfire Service became aware of multiple fire starts Wednesday morning after lightning the night before. Crews initially reported 22 wildfire starts, but after more crews arrived, that number rose to 33.
