Despite British Columbia’s wildfire season flaring up in earnest over the BC Day long weekend, dozens of people still took it upon themselves to flout campfire bans.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service says it handed out nearly $30,000 in fines during the holiday, most of them for illegal fires.
That sum came in the form of 26 tickets, at $1,150 a pop.
More than half of the tickets were in the Sea-to-Sky region, where officers issued a total of $18,000 in fines. In some cases, more than one person was fined at the same campfire.
Officers handed out two tickets for illegal campfires on Vancouver Island, and another two to people who had entered a restricted area related to the rapidly growing Wesley Ridge wildfire near Cameron Lake.
Campfires are currently banned in virtually all of the Coastal Fire Centre, including the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, where persistent drought has left the landscape extremely dry and the fire danger rating at high or extreme.
Campfires remain permitted in the rest of B.C.; however, open fires exceeding three metres in width are not permitted.