Despite being very much on the path to a difficult fire season, thanks to below average rains and low snowpacks, local fire officials aren't panicking yet. (BC Wildfire Service)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

needed rains

Low snowpack levels not a predictor of bad Island fire season: Coastal Fire Centre

Feb 14, 2024 | 12:27 PM

NANAIMO — Despite a snow pack measured at roughly one third of what it typically is this time of year, regional fire crews aren’t concerned…yet.

As rain deficits increase with each passing month, and warmer than normal temperatures helped dramatically reduce mountain snow in January, the Coastal Fire Centre says a serious fire season is not a lock.

Information officer Kimberly Kelly admitted the “cards are stacked” against the region for another active fire season, it’s still too early to tell whether it will hold true.

“Some of our most active wildfire seasons such as 2003, 2017 and 2018, followed on the heels of deeper than normal snowpack. Really what’s important to us is the amount of rain we receive in June, this generally determines the severity of the fire season.”

She said it was a “common misconception” linking snow pack to severity of fire season.

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Kelly added long term forecasts aren’t able to accurately predict precipitation levels in June, where an average of 43.4 millimetres of rain typically falls.

Last June, only around half the average rainfall occurred in the region with 28.7 millimetres falling.

Conditions in 2022 however were much more favourable with extended rainfall through the spring and into a classing Island ‘June-uary’.

Kelly said their main concern at the moment is increasing public education regarding human-caused wildfires, which accounted for 53 per cent of all starts on the Island last summer.

“It’s going to take us all, whether it is that prevention piece and people understanding how to recreate…in our backcountry. Or being there and detecting wildfires, reporting them to us early and often, keeping an eye on that wildfire map so you can keep yourself and your family safe.”

The Island was largely spared through a damaging and fatal fire season in B.C. in 2023, with remote-area fires near Sayward and Cameron Lake largely causing travel-related issues.

— with files from Bill Nation, 97.3 The Eagle

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