Representatives from the BC Wildfire Service’s Cariboo Fire Centre attended the Cariboo Regional District board meeting this week to discuss how burning prohibitions are managed for the Cariboo-Chilcotin region.
They discussed how burning prohibitions are currently established, noting that they rely on existing jurisdictional boundaries for where the prohibitions will apply. Forest districts, major rivers, and fire center boundaries were highlighted as notable examples of typical geographic boundaries.
The board and BC Wildfire representatives discussed the challenges of having burning prohibitions for areas where higher elevations may still have dead wood that presents a fire hazard along with snow and low temperatures during a burning prohibition. CRD Board members raised concerns about ensuring that rural property owners and ranchers would be able to obtain reasonable exemptions for preventative burning if there was snow still present on the ground, and BC Wildfire committed to investigate opportunities to support wildfire prevention for these areas.