There are no holdover fires from 2023 within the Coastal Fire Centre such as those happening in other regions of the province, confirmed a BC Wildfire Service spokesperson.
“In addition, the precipitation the Coastal region has received over the last two months has helped to reduce the spring wildfire risk here,” said fire information officer Julia Caranci.
Looking to the 2024 fire season, much will depend on the amount of precipitation the region receives this spring, particularly during the month of June, she said.
This year, the Coastal Fire Centre is expanding its cultural and prescribed fire program, including strengthening partnerships with First Nations.
“We are currently conducting several landscape-scale planning projects to identify future burn areas, as well as actively writing burn plans for units that have already been identified,” Caranci said.
Two burns are anticipated for spring 2024.
The first one at Tenquille, near Pemberton.
It will be 15-hectare higher-elevation burn designed to stimulate berry production and co-developed with Lil’wat First Nation
Another burn will be adjacent to the community of Boothroyd, for 35-ha understory and grass burn for risk reduction and ecosystem restoration.
The burn is being co-developed with Boothroyd Indian Band.
Future burn projects may be identified and funded through a variety of avenues, including the Community Resiliency Investment Program.
“Where nations are interested in practicing cultural burning, our staff are eager and available to support in any capacity that is helpful,” Caranci said. “In some instances, this may look like BCWS co-developing burn plans with the Nation, and in other instances the Nation may decide to take the lead and BCWS can provide any assistance that is requested.”
Coastal Fire Centre staff are also communicating with First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS) to identify broader opportunities for collaboration across land jurisdictions.
“Additional partners for our prescribed fire program include the Natural Resource Districts, other provincial agencies, local governments, tenure holders, and non-profit organizations,” Caranci said.
The 2023 fire season runs from April 1, 2023 until March 31, 2024.
Current statistics show there were 366 wildfires in total as of March 15. Of those fires, 174 were person caused and 192 lightning caused for a total of 89,111 hectares burned.
Fires in the Bella Coola area were lightning-caused. Of those, eight wildfires were located wholly within Coastal Fire Centre’s jurisdiction with a total burn of 5,500 hectares in the Tweedsmuir Park area.
The total hectares burned for the eight wildfires was approximately 50,697 hectares.
Two additional Coastal Fire Centre fires spanned into the Cariboo Fire Centre’s jurisdiction, and burned 45,196 hectares.
Caranci said because the main road access to Bella Coola is though the Cariboo Fire Centre’s jurisdiction, with limited access from the Coastal Fire Centre, the Cariboo Fire Centre assisted Coastal Fire Centre in taking over some of those fires, with an incident management team from the United States who had arrived to assist.
“This type of partnership has been done historically between the two fire centres and the Coastal Fire Centre said it maintains good partnerships with all of its neighbouring fire centres, including the Cariboo, the Northwest and Kamloops.”
This includes sharing resources and personnel.
When the incident management team arrived from the United States it took command of the fires in Tweedsmuir Park for the Cariboo Fire Centre.
BC Wildfire Service firefighters and support staff came to the Coastal Fire Centre from other fire centres in the province to assist at various times during the 2023 fire season – including unit crews, single resources and initial attack crews, totalling in the range of 150 personnel. Fire centres can import or export personnel between fire centres when the need arises.
Caranci reminded the public it plays an important role in helping the BC Wildfire Service to reduce wildfires. Human-caused wildfires are preventable.
“So regardless of the time of year and conditions, we want to stress that anyone recreating in our forests needs to be responsible if having a campfire or engaging in any activity that could potentially cause a wildfire.”
Residents are encouraged to take steps to fire-smart their homes and properties.
Spring is typically the time of year BC Wildfire Service asks people to clean up around their properties, before wildfire season begins. She also stressed the importance of the safe use of Category two (backyard) burning, and that residents ensure they are not doing so when there is a Coastal prohibition or a local government bylaw in effect.
“Always check before lighting any fire.”
On March 18, the province announced a new app that will help crews predict and fight wildfires in B.C. The software will first be used in the Coastal and Kamloops Regional Fire Centre, which earlier trialed the software. B.C.’s four remaining regional fire centres will phase in the technology over the course of 2024, following trials and additional refinement.
Coast Mountain News has reached out to Nunumus Management Limited to find out more about the wildfire risk management and collaborative work it is doing in the valley.
Watch for a future feature article about those efforts.
READ MORE: Real-time app to help predict wildfires in B.C.
READ MORE: B.C.’s wildfires helped feed glacier meltdown across western Canada: report
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