Wildfire conditions expected to get worse in B.C. as dry cold front on the way

Hot and dry weather has already exacerbated B.C.’s wildfire season and forecasters expect conditions will only get worse later in the week.

The BC Wildfire Service’s lead forecaster said a dry cold front will come into the province on Thursday and Friday and is expected to bring plenty of wind, which could invigorate existing fires.

The front could also bring thunderstorms, which could start new fires.

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Aggressive fire growth is expected, the BC Wildfire Service said, and the Central and Southern Interior regions are especially at risk.

“We’re anticipating these fires are going to grow in size and become quite aggressive and it’s the type of environment where you know the safety of our crews is of the utmost importance,” Matthew MacDonald, lead fire weather forecaster with the Wildfire Service said.

“This type of weather on Thursday, we’re probably going to be taking a big stand back and a big breadth of safety because it’s going to be that type of aggressive fire environment.”

The service said if you live in an area under evacuation alert, be sure to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice if conditions worsen.

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MacDonald is also warning about high temperatures and those will continue to climb.

“We actually broke 14 new temperature records across the province yesterday,” he said Tuesday. “You know, temperatures getting already into the 40-degree mark in places like Lytton and Lillooet. And, you know, we’re just kind of halfway through this heat wave. So lots more heat on the way right up until Thursday.

MacDonald also said more than 1.5 million hectares of forest have burned this season, which has broken records.

“If we look at our current moisture content or lack thereof, really, it is kind of you know, there’s a bull’s eye in it around the Cariboo region and that extends south into the Kamloops Fire Centre,” MacDonald added.

“So areas including the entirety of the Okanagan down through the Similkameen in and then if we move east in the province into the Monashee and Selkirk, so places like Revelstoke, Golden down through Castlegar and then all the way to the eastern corner into Fernie, that entirety of the Southern Interior and Central Interior is very dry right now.”

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