Campfires will be permitted across the Coastal Fire Centre over the Canada Day long weekend, however the situation will be assessed again after. (Dreamstime)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

FIRE SMARTS

No Island fire bans ahead of Canada Day, but ‘use fire responsibly’

Jun 29, 2022 | 3:11 PM

NANAIMO — It’s an official green light to spark safely over the Canada Day long weekend.

No additional fire bans, encompassing things from campfires to burn barrels, will be put in place for the Coastal Fire Centre ahead of celebrations over the July long weekend thanks to a consistently wet and cool spring which has held on through the first few weeks of summer.

Fire information officer Julia Caranci told NanaimoNewsNOW they’ll get through the long weekend and reassess conditions next week.

“We don’t have an immediate plan, we will not be implementing anything before the long weekend however, this is going to be one of the biggest camping weekends of the year and we really want to stress to the public to use fire responsibly.”

She said it’s crucial to be prepared if you’re planning to light a fire over the long weekend.

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Steps include a fire break around the site of the fire, having tools and water standing by to extinguish it and ensuring the fire is cool to the touch prior to leaving.

Despite the slow start to the fire season, a recent lightning event through much of Vancouver Island is proving a timely reminder of how quickly conditions can change.

Storms rolled through parts of Vancouver Island and into the Lower Mainland on Tuesday, June 28, with the Coastal Fire Centre confirming 2,166 individual strikes in their jurisdiction.

Caranci said the storms also brought a flood of reports from people seeing smoke.

“That resulted in about 12 initial fire reports so by the end of the day [Tuesday] and into [Wednesday, June 29] we had found the ones we could find…we did do a number of patrols and we ended up confirming eight fires.”

Two were on Vancouver Island, however, neither got a foothold and aren’t expected to grow at all.

Crews will spend the coming days monitoring for more smoke in various areas, with lightning-caused fires sometimes taking days after a strike to actually take hold.

“We going to have to continue doing our patrols over the next couple of days, some air and foot patrols because it is possible when we have a lightning event like that to have what’s called a holdover fire,” Caranci said.

Caranci added a brief blast of summer air last weekend was enough to up the fire danger rating to moderate across most of Vancouver Island.

Warm, outflow winds from the Interior quickly dried out some surface-level fuels in the forest as temperatures jump to the low 30’s for the first time this year.

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alex@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @alexrawnsley