Even though B.C. as a whole is doing better than last year in terms of snow and drought heading into fire season, conditions are unequal throughout the province.
Recent rains have wiped out snowpack in low elevations across the south.
“We’re seeing extremely low snow-pack at this time of the year in the Okanagan basin stretching up into the Cariboo,” said David Campbell, head of the River Forecast Centre. “In the Okanagan specifically, we’re seeing individual sites that are at record low and record early melt.”
Despite it being a wet winter, it was also a warm winter. In Vernon, it was the warmest winter since records began being kept in 1905.
This has created a real north-south divide, according to the latest seasonal fire and flood outlook update from Campbell and other provincial officials on Thursday, April 16.
Overall, the province’s snowpack is at 92 per cent of normal. Last year at this time, it was 79 per cent and the year before, 66 per cent.
Officials still stressed that rainfall amounts in May and June will still have the biggest impact on the severity of this year’s fire season.
But with a long-term forecast of a warmer-than-average summer — forecast temperature anomalies are 0.5 to 1.0 C above normal through July — water availability is already a concern for parts of the central and southern Okanagan.
Things would be worse had it not been for “exceptional” rains in December, with atmospheric rivers impacting most of the province. In many places, this brought heavy rains before the first hard frost, allowing the moisture to sink in and decreasing drought code levels.
The result has been that the majority of the province (except for the northeast, the Chilcotin and the South Thompson) has much lower drought levels at the start of spring compared to the end of fall.
“December was a really key month for us from a wildfire perspective — really helped alleviate drought conditions in many parts of the province,” said Matt MacDonald, lead fire forecaster for B.C. Wildfire Service.
Another wrinkle was the warm and wet March. This added to the high-elevation snowpack, but washed away snow on the valley bottoms, particularly in southern B.C. This has increased the likelihood of early-season grass fires in the interior valleys.
With four fires already reported, MacDonald said B.C. is already “well into the wildfire season.” But this is normal.
“I would say that this spring is near normal, if not below normal, in terms of fire activity so far,” MacDonald said.
Before fire season ramps up further, the province has to get through flood season. And the northern parts of B.C. are still “buried” under snow, according to MacDonald.
So, like the fire outlook, the flood danger varies. The wet weather in March wiped out snowpack in southern B.C., but added to it in the north and high elevations in the south. Those areas, including higher elevations of the Fraser, central coast, and Kootenay regions, will still need to be mindful of flood danger.
“So, no matter where you are in B.C., we all need to be mindful that conditions could change depending on how the spring and this summer unfold,” said Randene Neill, minister of water, land and resource stewardship.