The BC Wildfire Service has shifted many resources from the northern part of the province to the Kamloops and Southeast fire centres.
While rain has helped ease the threat elsewhere, there was very little precipitation over the past week in the Southern Interior, with dozens of new fire starts, including some major blazes like the Ross Moore Lake wildfire, south of Kamloops.
“In the southeast corner of the province as well as a pocket within the Kamloops and Coast fire centres there has been zero precipitation measured during the three days in which most of the province saw rain,” explained Cliff Chapman, director, wildfire operations, BC Wildfire Service.
The concern is that we are heading into the hottest, driest month of the year, and the area burned is already the most of any year on record, at more than 1.5 million hectares.
“We are asked lots how this season compares to 2017, 2018 and 2021, very challenging fire seasons for the province of B.C. Hectares burned is only one number and it is not necessarily the biggest variable in what we would deemed our most challenging or hardest fire season the province has ever faced,” Chapman pointed out.
As BCWS resources are shifted south, he says other resources will be staying in northern B.C., including members of the military.
BCWS is also expecting a contingent of firefighters from Costa Rica and help from Ontario. Chapman says while they asked for 100 firefighters from Ontario, they are still waiting to hear if those will be made available. However, Ontario has agreed to send two highly-trained incident management teams to relieve some of the teams who have been going non-stop for weeks in BC.
