While around 400 active forest fires are burning across the province, last year at this time the figure was 807, according to a fire information officer with the B.C. Forest Service.

But those statistics don’t tell the whole story, Gwen Eamer told the Straight.

“We are in a very average fire season,” Eamer said by phone. “We are just slightly below the average number of fires and slightly above the average number of hectares burnt. However, what is different about this year is how quickly that has happened.”

Up until about a week and a half ago, B.C. was having a very “slow season”, Eamer noted.

“The number of fires was way down from the average,” she said. “The number of hectares was way down from the average. And now we are up to the average. So, instead of spreading that activity over a matter of months, we have condensed it into one week. It really started on Tuesday of last week.”

Eamer confirmed that the number of lightning-caused fires this year to date (as of August 3) is 677. At this time last year, the same figure was 1,500, according to her.

“The vast majority of our fires will remain very small,” she said. “Our goal is to contain them at under four hectares—which is what we call ”˜initial attack success’. So the vast majority of those happen quickly and then they are out quickly. So the number of fires actually burning changes and fluctuates fairly wildly. In terms of the numbers of fires that we have had, that has been steadily climbing over the last week or so. We have seen, for example, yesterday we had 55 new fires, and that has remained fairly average over the past week—about 50 to 75 new fires every day.”

This afternoon (August 3), Eamer said 29 new fires had started so far today.