As we enter British Columbia’s 2025 wildfire season, it’s a good time to refresh our knowledge about this powerful natural phenomenon, including its role in the ecosystem and the horrific damage it can inflict. 

As we all know, our province is virtually blanketed by forests of various types, which makes it particularly susceptible to wildfires. What's more, prolonged drought conditions, low snowpacks, and below-average precipitation have all contributed to recent high burn totals. 

In 2024, about 1 million hectares were burned. The year before, the total was over 2.8 million hectares, the highest amount ever recorded for a single year. However, that followed a season when only 135,200 hectares burned, far below the ten-year average. And the 2018 total of 1.35 million hectares followed a near-record low season of only 14,500 hectares. 

That all goes to say: The volume of forest burned from year to year is highly variable, as is the estimated total cost, so we can’t fully predict what the 2025 season will look like. A large number of wildfires are caused by lightning, but far too many are preventable. On average, 42 per cent are human-caused.  

While small wildfires can actually prevent larger ones from occurring and play an essential role in the life cycle of a forest, large-scale ones are detrimental to air quality, slope stability, and water quality in adjacent streams and lakes. And we are all aware of the damage to housing, businesses, and critical infrastructure when wildfires expand into settled areas. Nobody needs to be reminded of the devastating impacts of recent wildfires in Fort McMurray, Lytton, West Kelowna, Jasper, or Pacific Palisades.  

Disasters like the ones mentioned above have multi-layered impacts, destroying homes and forcing mass evacuations. There are also community-wide effects, as damaged infrastructure must be repaired (and hardened against future wildfires), and the local housing market is put under strain as displaced households need to find suitable accommodations during repair / rebuild. Meanwhile, local capacity to provide much-needed new housing gets stressed to the limit. 

So, what can be done to mitigate the damage from wildfires? One major weapon is awareness. This means understanding the potential risks faced by your community and preparing for a worst-case scenario. It means making sure you're covered for damage caused by wildfires. It means taking steps to make your home is FireSmart. It means having a “go bag” packed and ready if wildfires are burning in your general vicinity and having an evacuation plan for your family and pets. 

To help with these efforts, the BC Government is working on provincial and regional disaster and climate risk and resilience assessments. These will provide information on wildfire risk, but also threats from extreme heat, drought, coastal and riverine flooding, and earthquakes. 

While we can't predict what the 2025 wildfire season will bring, awareness and preparation remain our best tools. Wildfires are a fact of life in BC, but by planning ahead and working with others, we can reduce their worst impacts and better protect our communities. 

Bonus: As a big fan of the Knowledge Network, I want to plug their outstanding current original programming on BC’s front-line firefighters. It’s called Wildfire, and I encourage everyone to check it out. 

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