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Average Hectares, Fires, and Dollars

Review of 2006 Fire Season

Provincially, 2006 saw 2,590 wildfires that burned 131,086 hectares and cost about $156 million to manage. Historically, an average wildfire season in B.C. sees 2,000 fires, burns 68,132 hectares and costs $95 million.

The high level of activity in 2006 is because of a particularly long season (fire starts and increased behaviour started early and ended late) and very dry conditions. In an average year, nearly 1,000 wildfires in B.C. are lighting-caused while another 1,000 are caused by humans; 2006 saw more than 1,500 lightning-caused wildfires and more than 1,000 human-caused starts. Although considerably lower than the 50% average, human-caused wildfires still accounted for about 40% of all wildfires this season. The result is that 40% of all unwanted wildfires in B.C. this season were preventable.

2006 Notable Fires

  • 11,000-hectare Hourglass Creek fire approximately 20km northeast of Tumbler Ridge that caused an evacuation alert and evacuation order
  • 60-hectare Galiano Island fire at the south end of Galiano Island that caused an evacuation alert and voluntary evacuations
  • 130-hectare Tuktakamin Mountain fire 5 km South of Falkland that caused an evacuation alert
  • 5,460-hectare Tatoosh fire approx. 1/2 mile inside Canadian border between Manning and Cathedral Parks that caused an evacuation alert
  • 1,800-hectare Border Lake fire, less than 1km from Canada/US Border that caused an evacuation alert

In 2006, B.C. Forest Service Protection Program resources were deployed out of province under cost-recovery agreements to assist with fire activity in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Yukon, Idaho, Montana, and Washington state.

As fire season is still ongoing, the final statistics are not yet available for 2006. This information will be updated near the end of February 2007, and the number of fires by cause and fire centre will be included at that time.

Historical Averages

Year Total Fires Total Hectares Total Cost (millions) Average Hectares
per Fire 		Average Cost
per hectare
2005 976 34,588 $47.2 35.4 $1,365
2004 2394 220,516 $164.6 92.1 $746
2003 2473 265,050 $371.9 107.2 $1,403
2002 1783 8,539 $37.5 4.8 $4,392
2001 1266 9,677 $53.8 7.6 $5,560
2000 1539 17,673 $52.7 11.5 $2,982
1999 1208 11,581 $21.1 9.6 $1,819
1998 2665 76,574 $153.9 28.7 $2,009
1997 1175 2,960 $19.0 2.5 $6,412
1996 1358 20,669 $37.1 15.2 $1,794
1995 1474 48,080 $38.5 32.6 $801
Average * 1733.5 68,132 $95.0 31.2 $2,792

* The average does not include the most recent year.

Some years have very different averages as compared to other years. For instance, 1997 has a very high cost per hectare while 1995 has an extremely low cost per hectare. In 1997, we actively fought a lot of small fires, but in 1995, a few fires in the far north of the province were permitted to burn as they were not threatening anything of value. Therefore, those large fires drastically increased the total hectares burned, but they didn't cost us much at all, so the average cost per hectare drops.

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