Wildfires on Vancouver Island down this season compared to 10-year average

The Old Man Lake wildfire near Sooke is the only one currently burning on Vancouver Island. It’s a region of the province that this year saw a drastic drop in blazes in the backcountry.

"Our 10-year average on Vancouver Island is 75 fires in a season and this year on the island we've had 47,” said Alyssa Cheverie, a fire information officer with the Coastal Fire Centre.

Those numbers can be attributed to a few factors, including favourable weather following a two-week heat event in early July.

"After that there were some heat blips but it wasn't anything compared to what we saw last year, where it was much warmer and much dryer over the province,” said Ken Dosanjh, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The Coastal Fire Centre said more fires are being reported earlier and that is giving crews the chance to knock them down quicker. It adds that communities have also been very proactive “fire smarting” themselves, which the fire center says is making a difference.

"We look at it really from roof down, walls out,” said Ryan Vantreight, a fire smart co-ordinator with the Central Saanich Fire Department.

His job is to assess properties for potential fire risks at the owners’ request. It’s free and a confidential service.

"When we go walls out we look at the non-combustible zone around the property,” said Vantreight.

Recommendations can include removing trees and shrubs from around the perimeter of the home. Vantreight will then look further away from the structure, at everything within a roughly 30-metre radius.

"We look at fuels that could be consumed that would bring a risk to the home and then make recommendations on how to reduce that risk."

Mark Venn owns a 10-acre property in Central Saanich.

"I moved here 20 years ago and the place was very much overgrown and the forest was coming onto the property,” said Venn.

After retiring from a career as a fire underwriter in the insurance industry he knows the risks that that overgrowth could have to his property.

"Every year for the past 15 years I had tree work done,” said Venn. “I mean I had to pace if out because it's not cheap."

Now after years of work the trees on Venn’s property has been thinned out. Plants have been moved away from the home and on Thursday he was getting a good assessment from Central Saanich’s fire smart co-ordinator.

"It's little bits at a time and we give you those recommendations in bite sized portions so that people can digest it and be able to do things over time,” said Vantreight.