Forest task force last year extinguished hundreds of abandoned campfires in B.C.

A group known for cleaning up the Okanagan’s backcountry responded to hundreds of abandoned fires in the valley last year, many of which were during a campfire ban.

President of the Okanagan Forest Task Force, Kane Blake said his group typically responds to about 10 to 15 fires a night in the backcountry.

“We put out roughly 300 abandoned campfires, four vehicle fires and we assisted a couple of our members in saving our homes from the McDougall Creek wildfire,” said Blake.

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Of the 300 abandoned fires the OFTF responded to, 30 to 40 were during a campfire ban.

“We are always going to have the people who hide that they’re having a fire or from out-of-province and don’t know we have a fire ban,” said Blake. “Every time there’s somebody at a fire while there’s a fire ban, we always report it.”

A three-hectare wildfire that sparked in Lumby last weekend left the city’s officials in shock.

“An absolute surprise to me, it’s early in the year for something like this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before,” Kevin Acton, Mayor of Lumby, said last Sunday.

Amid persistent drought conditions and fears of another difficult wildfire season, B.C. officials have unveiled an early-season fire ban, for both the Prince George and Cariboo regions.