B.C. officials urge preparation ahead of summer wildfire season

During a press conference on Thursday, Bowinn Ma, the Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, was getting serious about the upcoming wildfire season.

“We cannot afford to become complacent when it comes to extreme weather events,” said Ma. “We must all take action now to protect ourselves, our families and our communities.”

Last October was one of the driest on record and the winter wasn’t much better.

“We’ll have to keep a close eye on what evolves here into the meat of the summer,” said Matt McDonald with the BC Wildfire Service.

The province says spring wildfire and flooding risk for Vancouver Island is low but if we don’t get a substantial amount of rain by the end of June, that could put us in a position for a summer drought.

“We don’t know what the wildfire season is going to be,” Langford Fire Rescue Chief Chris Aubrey said.

Langford is surrounded by forests. Aubrey knows the threat that those forests can pose under drought conditions.

“Last year we did a large assessment of the community properties,” said Aubrey. "It’s more just thinning out and removing fuel that isn’t necessary, so things like logs and branches."

“Last summer here in Sooke, we were at three months of extreme fire risk,” said Ashlene Aktarian, a Fire Smart coordinator with Sooke Fire Rescue.

A large portion of Aktarian’s job is educating the public.

“Being fire smart is really about living and coexisting with wildfires,” said Aktarian.

She has some tips to keep your home and family safe.

If you plan to do any renovations to your home, focus on choosing fire-resistant building materials. She says to keep firewood and other flammable materials 10 to 30 metres away from your home.

Clean up your yard of fallen sticks and debris and if you are planning on gardening, try to buy fire resistant plants.

Fire Smart BC has a landscaping hub on it’s website. “Which is a really amazing resource,” said Aktarian. “You can go on there and select shrubs, different types of trees, flowers and understand if it’s more fire resistive.”

Officials say now is the time to get started fire proofing your home because before you know it, summer will be upon us.