Category two and three fires in the Coastal Fire Centre are prohibited effective noon on Friday, July 24. Included are burn piles, burn barrels and fireworks. (File Photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

FIRE BAN

Open fires banned again by Coastal Fire Centre, campfires still allowed for now

Jul 24, 2020 | 5:24 AM

NANAIMO — Warmer, drier weather over the last couple of weeks along with little rain in the forecast is prompting the Coastal Fire Centre to prohibit open fires.

Effective at noon on Friday, July 24, category two and three open fires are banned in most areas of the Coastal Fire Centre, including the mid-Island.

The ban includes open burning, burn piles, fireworks, sky lanterns and air curtain burners.

Marg Drysdale, Coastal Fire Centre information officer, said the arrival of seasonally hot temperatures has dried out the forest floor quickly.

“We have had some precipitation but it hasn’t been a lot…it’s been surprisingly light showers,” Drysdale said. “The forest has continued to dry, people think we’ve had a lot of rain but we’ve had overcast weather, showers in some places but we haven’t had consistent, heavy rainfall.”

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Around 16 millimetres of rain has been recorded at Nanaimo airport since the start of July, with no measurable precipitation recorded since July 8.

The prohibitions on Friday do not apply to campfires, defined by the centre as fires less than half a metre in diameter.

Drysdale said it’s too early to say whether a campfire ban will be in place for the B.C. Day long weekend, Aug. 1-3.

“We’re going to see what happens over the next couple of weeks. We did go through all of last summer without a campfire ban in place. If the weather turns around that may be the same this year but we really need to see what the weather’s going to be bringing us.”

The last time the Coastal Fire Centre went two consecutive years without a campfire ban was in 2011 and 2012.

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