B.C. officials warn of abnormal fall as warm, dry conditions keep wildfire risk high

A firefighter performs small hand ignitions on the 2023 McDougall Creek wildfire near West Kelowna. (Image credit: BC Wildfire Service)

Looking ahead into the fall, B.C. officials are warning of an abnormal season to come as warm, dry conditions are expected to continue.

The province-wide state of emergency put in place due to the wildfire situation is set to expire at midnight on Sept. 15 unless officials decide to extend it, which they will deliberate over the next 24 hours, said Bowinn Ma, B.C.'s minister of emergency management and climate readiness, at a news conference Wednesday.

“We are nearing the end of the fire season, but we are not yet in the clear,” Ma reiterated.

She noted that hundreds of wildfires continue to burn across the province, with a particularly concerning situation in the north, where above-seasonal temperatures and winds are expected to pose a challenge to the wildfire fight this week.

Ma said there are currently 1,200 British Columbians still on evacuation order, with another 34,000 on evacuation alert.

There are 393 active wildfires in the province, and 12 of them are “of note,” meaning they are highly visible or pose a threat to public safety, said Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston.

That’s more than double the number of fires that was burning this time last year, when there were 188 active blazes and five fires of note, he said.

”It has been a long, challenging fire season, the worst in British Columbia's history, and it is not over yet,” said Ralston.

Heading into fall, officials said a “very atypical” season is in store in the north.

Neal McLoughlin, superintendent of predictive services for BC Wildfire Service said the Buildup Index (BUI), which measures the total amount of fuel readily available to burn, is at a “very pronounced above-normal anomaly throughout northern B.C.”

He added that forecasts predict both warmer and drier conditions than normal across B.C. through September, October and November. And as the leaves change colour, “live vegetation will become more available to burn and easier to ignite,” McLoughlin said.

With fuel remaining “critically dry” and not enough rain to help out, he said the fires burning in the Prince George Fire Centre will continue burning through the fall, and some may even burn through the winter and pop back up next spring.

McLoughlin said patterns of cold fronts and winds will continue coming in without precipitation.

“When we have these weather patterns set up, things can quickly escalate and so fires that haven't been doing anything for several days could quickly go to run 10, 20, even more kilometers in one single day,” he explained.

“These will be short lived wildfire events, but they can be high-impact depending on where they occur. So just a reminder that we're not out of the fire season yet and drawing particular attention to the far north.”

The good news is that lightning-caused fires—which accounted for 72 per cent of starts this year—are expected to decline in the coming months, he said.

Any new fires this fall will likely be human-caused.

“We really do encourage the public to be careful with any kind of activity that could cause a fire,” McLoughlin said.