By The Canadian Press

B.C. wildfire costs top $100M, but still less than half of 2015 expenditures

Aug 26, 2016 | 11:25 AM

KAMLOOPS — British Columbia has spent $103-million fighting wildfires across the province since the fire season began April 1.

Information officer Claire Allen of the BC Wildfire Service says that is less than half the amount spent in B.C. over the same period last year.

She says $232-million was spent battling 1,772 fires between April and the end of August in 2015, while just 943 blazes have scorched 990 square kilometres of B.C. woodland this year.

That compares to the nearly 3,000 square kilometres of bush burned across B.C. in 2015.

This year’s fire season began early and aggressively with several huge wildfires in northeastern B.C.

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But Allen says cooler weather in late June and throughout July dampened the fire danger, and a recent heat wave is also expected to be checked by lower temperatures this weekend.

(CHNL)

The Canadian Press