2017, 2018 Were BC's Worst Fire Seasons On Record; March 2019 Driest On Record For Province
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These last two summers were the worst wildfire seasons on record and both resulted in a provincial state of emergency being declared. So what should B.C. residents expect this year? That will depend entirely on the weather this spring and summer: whether it will be cool and rainy or hot with lots of lightning, said University of Alberta professor and wildfire expert Mike Flannigan.
“My guess is it is going to be an active fire season, above normal, but that is a very cautious (guess),” said Flannigan, director of the Edmonton-based Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science. “You’ve had two record-breaking fire seasons. It’s unusual to get three bad fire seasons in a row, but with the crazy weather and arguably with climate change, I wouldn’t rule it out.”
March was a record-dry month, with Vancouver receiving just a quarter of its average monthly rainfall — and there was even less precipitation in parts of Vancouver Island and the northern Interior, according to the Weather Network. While spring weather will not necessarily foreshadow the extent of forest fires this summer, the unusually dry March has led to an early start to the 2019 wildfire season. More than 16 fires have ignited in the last week, including two near Kamloops that both grew larger than 100 hectares — one quarter the size of Stanley Park — and one near Squamish that reached 50 hectares.
Fires starting earlier
These premature blazes continue a worrisome trend that started about two decades ago, said Phil Burton, a professor in the ecosystem science and management program at the University of Northern B.C. “We are having earlier fire seasons. The mere fact that we are having fires reported in March is in itself different from anything we’ve had in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s,” said Burton. “We typically think of the fire season as starting with the university students being out of school, the last week of April or the first few weeks of May.”
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https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-s-worst-wildfire-seasons-were-in-2017-and-2018-what-will-happen-in-2019