The province’s Wildfire Management Branch is still allowing campfires in Coastal British Columbia, but Bowen Island’s Fire Chief Ian Thompson has banned all open fires on Bowen Island.
Thompson says that this ban is likely to remain in effect throughout the summer months.
“Once these bans are in effect, we don’t typically reverse them,” he says, adding that according to weather forecasts, the dry spell looks likely to continue.
On Monday morning of this week, the Bowen Island Fire Department responded to concerns of Bowen Islanders who smelled smoke, but after some investigation discovered that the smoke was coming from wildfires burning near Lytton, BC, east of Whistler.
The fire department has had to put out one fire so far this season.
“That was two weeks ago, near Taylor Road,” says Thompson. “A neighbour smelled smoke and went on a walk to investigate and found a small glow from a fire in the woods. By the time we got there, it had probably tripled in size, to an area of about 10 by 10. Because we had a hard time getting to the fire – we had to hike up to it, and then realized we needed to drive up above it and bring the hoses down to it – it took us about three hours to put it out.”
Thompson says the likely cause of this fire was a cigarette.
“Unless lightning strikes, or there is a piece of glass that is left to catch the light in a very precise way, this is usually the case. Ninety-nine percent of the time, fires are caused by people.”
