As B.C. experiences cooler weather in some regions, the province's Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma says there is still a number of weeks left in the "core" wildfire season and people still need to remain vigilant.
Wildfires still remain "extremely active," Ma said during a wildfire update with Forests Minister Bruce Ralston and other experts Tuesday (Aug. 13). According to the BC Wildfire Service's dashboard, there are 428 active wildfires, with 60 of those started in the last 24 hours.
There are 11 evacuation orders and 25 alerts.
Ralston said in the last week, there were nearly 7,500 lightning strikes recorded in the province, resulting in 256 wildfire starts. More than 80 per cent of those wildfires are now either deemed out or contained.
"It's an extraordinary testament to the work, the planning of our wildland firefighters, local fire departments and all our community partners," Ralston said.
He said the immediate forecast will continue to create "challenging" wildfire conditions, although cooler temperatures are expected in the south. That shift in weather, he said, can come with high winds and more lightning activity.
"As a result, we are expecting a number of new starts to increase this week, and BC Wildfire Service, as you would expect, is mobilizing resources to be ready to respond."
BC Wildfire Service operations director Cliff Chapman said that when lightning strikes, sometimes it's dry lightning which comes with either no rain or minimal rain.
"But with the systems that we've been seeing come through the last number of days, it has come with some precipitation underneath it, in particular, in the last 48 hours. And so sometimes the lightning will strike a tree and it will create a fire, but then the rain that's associated with that system will smoke and it might knock down the fire to come just smouldering at best," Chapman said.
He said sometimes crews can't always see the smoke, or it won't make it into the sky, and it can smoulder for days without detection, depending on the underlying drought conditions of fuels.
"As we've been speaking about all summer, our drought levels in our fuels is quite high ... and it's going to take a significant amount of moisture to change that."
Ma said one of the reasons why B.C. is is continuing to experience significant wildfire seasons is the prolonged drought.
"Drought can impact the water we need to drink, to grow our food, to keep our fish healthy, our animals healthy and our environment healthy and it requires action to mitigate the impact wherever we can."
