Lightning main cause of forest fires
“Only YOU can prevent forest fires,” Smokey the Bear has been telling us for more than 70 years.
But, the anti-wildfire campaigner is not telling the whole truth.
In the United States — where Smokey was created in 1944 — a recently released study of 1.5 million government records of wildfires over 20 years (1992-2012) did show that 84 per cent were human caused. So, Smokey is on the right track. That study found that humans extended the forest fire season into the spring and fall, although the worst day for human caused fires is July 4 because of the heavy use of personal fireworks in that country. But, human-caused fires accounted for only 44 per cent of the total area burned. Lightning-caused fires burned the rest. In Canada, statistics give Smokey even less traction.
“Humans cause slightly more than half of all wildland fires in Canada, typically in populated forest and grassland areas,” states the Natural Resources Canada website. “Because of where these fires occur, they are usually spotted early and can be reached quickly by firefighting crews. Still, the threat they pose to human safety and property makes them a major concern for firefighting crews.”
The National Forestry Data Base shows humans caused 45 per cent of forest fires in B.C. between 1990 and 2015, but that only burned 16 per cent of the land.
Yet, every year there are campfire bans and calls to do more to prevent human-caused forest fires.
True, the largest fire in North American history was probably human caused. The Wisp fire (known as Chinchaga in Alberta where most of it burned) started north of Fort St. John in June 1950. One theory was that oil company workers started a campfire to protect their horses from biting insects. Another placed the source as slash burning. It destroyed 1.4 to 1.7 million hectares of boreal forest.
And other major fires were possibly human caused. RCMP concluded arson was the likely cause of the 2011 Slave Lake fire in Alberta that destroyed more than 400 homes.
That same year, the Richardson Fire in northern Alberta became that province’s second largest at about 700,000 hectares. It was suspected to have been human caused, but there is no information on what the precise cause might have been.
In 2003, the McClure fire north of Kamloops burned 65,285 hectares, destroyed 72 homes and nine businesses. It’s one of the few major human caused forest fires where the actual cause (a discarded cigarette) was determined and the person responsible was convicted (Mike Barre was fined $3,000).
According to B.C. Wildfire Services, last year was the worst wildfire season in B.C. history, based on the most land burned (more than 1.2 million hectares), number of people evacuated (65,000) and cost ($568 million).
The Elephant Hill fire, which burned almost 200,000 hectares, is believed to be human caused but is still under investigation.
But, these devastating human caused fires are the exception.
In 2017, the much larger Plateau fire, which burned 545,000 hectares near Williams Lake, was the result of 20 small fires emerging into one massive conflagration and was the largest fire in B.C. history (the Wisp fire being mostly in Alberta).
Most Kelowna residents remember the Okanagan Mountain Park fire of 2003. As forest fires go, it was relatively small at 25,912 hectares but it burned 239 homes and forced the evacuation of 27,000 residents. It was caused by lightning.
Yet, B.C. Wildfire Services has been imposing campfire bans for decades, despite no hard data that campfires, especially those in supervised campgrounds, have ever caused any significant damage.