BC announces a total campfire ban amid drastic wildfires

British Columbia is imposing a total ban on campfires across the province except Haida Gwaii after lightning combined with tinder-dry conditions sparked a massive wave of wildfires this weekend.

The measure, announced by Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma and effective from 3 p.m. Monday, completely bans the smallest Category 1 campfires, up to 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters.

It builds on bans that already applied to certain regions or to larger fires.

Ma said the fire situation had deteriorated “drastically” over the weekend and that the province was anticipating “continued extreme fire behavior”. She said 115 fires were started by dry lightning this weekend, and there are now 311 fires across the county.

She said there were 156 people under evacuation orders BC., and 629 under evacuation warning to leave their homes at short notice in the Northwest, Northeast and the inland Cariboo region.

Ma also declared a state of emergency for the Stikine region in the province’s northwest, effective immediately, to allow wildfire evacuations in the unincorporated region.

The emergency management ministry said in a statement that the state of emergency would initially be in effect for 14 days, but could be withdrawn or extended.

“Keeping people safe is our number one priority. The state of emergency only applies to the Stikine region, but we are constantly assessing the situation across the province,” Ma said in the statement.

Cliff Chapman, spokesman for the BC Wildfire Service, said the fire situation escalated across much of the county over the weekend.

BC. had “tight resources” to fight the big wave of wildfires, Chapman said, speaking from Kamloops at a news conference Monday along with Ma, who was in Vancouver. He said firefighters from Mexico and the United States attended BC. fighting fires in the hard-hit northeast of the province.

He said the Category 1 campfire ban was necessary to reduce the risk of man-made wildfires.

“We cannot afford to have a preventable fire break out in the province,” he said. “We are asking the whole world for help. We cannot afford to have man-made fires BC.”

The Cariboo and Kamloops fires in the BC. The Home Office and Prince George Fire Department in the northeast had already imposed a ban on Category 1 campfires.

Nearly 200 of the 311 fires are burning across the street BC. are judged to be out of control.

Of the 13 fires listed as “major fires”, all but two are in the Prince George and Northwest fire centers, and 12 have resulted in at least one evacuation order, although no major communities are threatened.

Some fires threaten rural highways, including Highway 27 south of Fort St. James and Highway 77 north of Fort Nelson. immediately affects the connection to Watson Lake and Whitehorse.

A wildfire in Yukon has about tripled since Sunday and remains uncontrollable. The charring of about three square miles of scrub in the Ibex Valley, about 19 miles west of Whitehorse, south of the Alaska Highway, prompted an evacuation warning for numerous properties along the route.

BC.’s wildfire danger was high to extreme in all small parts of the county on Monday.

Environment Canada posted a severe thunderstorm warning for the Fort Nelson and Peace River regions, the same area where major fires forced evacuations in July.

The weather bureau noted daily high temperature records were set in the province on Sunday, including a high of 33 degrees Celsius in Fort Nelson, two degrees hotter than the previous record for that northeastern community, set 64 years ago.

Forecasters said Nakusp was in BCSoutheast Asia also reported a sweltering 37.2C on Sunday, beating the old record set 22 years earlier, and while no daily highs were posted in the Yukon, that area remains under heat warnings stretching nearly 300 miles from its borders of BC. and the Northwest Territories north to Mayo.

Conditions may ease slightly BC. by Tuesday, but Environment Canada said cooler weather is not likely in the Yukon for the next several days.

The emergency management ministry said low rainfall and other precipitation over the past year has exacerbated the drought BC., with most water basins now at level four, on a five-level drought scale. Level four droughts are extremely dry conditions, with likely adverse effects of socio-economic conditions and ecosystems.