B.C. mayors raise concerns over what could be very active wildfire season
Posted May 22, 2025 7:39 am.
With drought and tinder dry conditions hitting many parts of the province, a number of municipal mayors are raising concerns about yet another potentially record-breaking wildfire season in B.C.
Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell, who has seen flames dance around his community for years, says current temperatures are well above normal.
“We are in drought conditions up here. We are expecting an above normal, higher risk wildfire season for sure,” he told 1130 NewsRadio.
“I took the dog for a walk in one of the neighbourhoods here, and if you kick below one centimetre of dirt, it’s just dust. The ground is exceedingly dry.”
He says his district is taking steps now to protect itself.
“[We] have brought on a special fire-smarting task force, we have a group of people who are going around to properties, to government land, critical infrastructure, that we need to protect against risk. That’s one half. The second half is that we’ve created our own initial attack crew, which is basically a mirror of what the BC Wildfire Service is,” Blackwell explained.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!Blackwell says they have to do that because the closest BC Wildfire Service crews are stationed roughly two hours south in Kamloops. He admits his community is not ready to handle anything that comes their way.
“Absolutely not. We’ve been in a battle for multiple years now with the Ministry of Forests on returning BC Wildfire crews to Clearwater. We are a high-risk community,” he said.
“We were ranked as the highest wildfire risk in Canada to have a significant in-town ignition before 2050, so we are on the cutting edge of this right now. It is something we have a deep concern with. I am so frustrated.”
Blackwell explains that the municipality has already experienced a handful of fires, with local residents and the volunteer fire department responding.
“We are not really depending on initial action by BC Wildfire Service at this point. They’ve stationed their crews in other areas and not here. I have had some assurances by BC Wildfire Service that if conditions get very concerning here, that they will bring in crews temporarily, but what generally happens is … by the time we are at risk, everything in our region has already had risk and those crews are already deployed.”
Mayor Barbara Roden has lived in Ashcroft for 28 years. She says, given the fire seasons in the last several years, fear now hangs over residents.
“It’s present in a way that I don’t think or don’t feel that it was in the first 15 or 18 years that I lived here. Ashcroft is in a desert. We have no trees near us, except for the ones we’ve planted in our yards. Wildfires can hit anywhere, and I think that’s the message that was received loud and clear here in Ashcroft,” she said.
“I think maybe we thought because we’re in a desert, we’re protected to a certain extent, and we found out in 2017 and in subsequent years that no, it doesn’t matter where you are. You do not have to be in the middle of a forest or even on the edge of a forest to be threatened by wildfires.”
In addition to fires, she says the increasingly extreme heat facing this province year after year is also becoming an equally serious concern.
A sentiment understood and echoed by Lytton Mayor Denise O’Connor. She moved back to her family home not that long ago after the village was leveled by a massive wildfire during the 2021 heat dome.
She says that looking ahead to the summer, she is worried as temperatures begin to creep up.
“Always. Always have been and always will. Lytton is a very hot, arid, dry place,” said O’Connor, adding that the municipality is still rebuilding four years later.
Unlike Clearwater, she says they do have BC Wildfire Service crews stationed in Lytton, which she says provides some relief to residents.
As of Thursday, there are roughly 30 fires burning in B.C., predominantly in the northeast. Eleven are out of control, and there have been 211 since April 1.
“We have seen a slower start to the fire season. We’ve had some rain and a really normal seasonal pattern so far. We’ll see if that lasts into June and July. The rain and the weather we get in June will really dictate what the rest of the fire season will look like,” said BCWS fire information officer Taylor Colman.
“But it just takes a little bit of wind and some warmer temperatures for things to dry out and become more susceptible to ignition. So, really important to just be careful with any activity that could potentially spark a wildfire, whether that’s having a campfire or getting rid of debris in your yard, enjoying fireworks on the weekend, off-road vehicles, anything like that.”
The BC Wildfire Service says this year’s provincial budget to handle the season is $238 million, however, the province can spend more than that to protect people and properties.
With files from Charles Brockman and Michael Williams.
