Welcome to the 2013 fire season!

As of May 10, 2013, the Kamloops Fire Centre has

responded to 38 wildfires consuming 433 hectares

since April 1, 2013.

May has been an interesting month for wildfires. The

Spatsum Creek wildfire started in the gusty wind

storm of April 27th and grew to 100 hectares. Crews

worked that week establishing control lines and

worked in snow, sleet and freezing temperatures. The

fire was being monitored closely by personnel, as

some areas of that fire were too rocky and unsafe for

crews to action.

On May 6, Ashcroft was Canada’s hotspot at 33.2 de-

grees and these breaking temperatures, windy condi-

tions combined with the steep and rocky terrain con-

tributed to the Spatsum Creek wildfire growing to an

estimated 245 hectares. Crews remain on site, and

have the fire 75 per cent contained.

Open burning prohibitions will come into effect on

May 15 in some areas of the Kamloops Fire Centre.

See page 2 for more information.

For the latest information on fire activity, bans and

restrictions and current conditions, visit the Wildfire

Management Branch website at www.bcwildfire.ca.

On Twitter at: http://twitter.com/BCGovFireInfo

On Facebook at: http://facebook.com/BCFirestFireInfo

Kamloops Fire Centre

2013.05.10

Fire Zone # of Fires # of Hectares

Clearwater 0 0

Kamloops 18 414

Salmon Arm 1 1

Vernon 5 4

Penticton 3 3

Merritt 7 4

Lillooet 4 7

Spatsum Creek Wildfire—May 7, 2013

P A G E 2

Kamloops Fire Centre Restrictions

Prohibitions:

Effective on noon on Wednesday, May 15, the size of open

fires will be restricted in most of the Kamloops Fire Centre

to help prevent human-caused wildfires and protect the

public.This prohibition applies to all areas of the Kamloops

Fire Centre except the Clearwater and Salmon Arm fire

zones. Anyone conducting Category 2 or 3 fires outside of

those two zones must extinguish such fires by noon on

May 15. This prohibition will remain in effect until Oct.

15, 2013, or until further notice.

The Clearwater and Salmon Arm fire zones will become

subject to this prohibition on June 15, 2013, when all open

burning will be prohibited throughout the Kamloops Fire

Centre.

Specifically, prohibited activities include:

The burning of any waste, slash or other materials

(piled or unpiled).

The burning of more than one open fires of any size at

the same time.

The burning of recreational and ceremonial

fires that exceed the size specified for camp-

fires (0.5 m x 0.5 m).

Stubble or grass fires of any size over any

area.

The use of fireworks, sky lanterns or burning bar-

rels of any size or description.

The ban does not prohibit campfires that are a

half-metre high by a half-metre wide or smaller,

or cooking stoves that use gas, propane or bri-

quettes. People lighting a campfire must maintain

a fireguard by removing flammable debris from

the campfire area, and must have a hand tool or at

least eight litres of water nearby to properly extin-

guish a fire escape.

This ban covers all BC Parks, Crown and

private lands, but does not apply within the

boundaries of local governments that have forest

fire prevention bylaws and are serviced by a fire

department. Please check with civic authorities for any re-

Prohibition on May 15

Prohibition on June 15

P A G E 3

Precipitation

Temperature Relative Humidity

These graphs are for informational purposes only and should not be used to base operational decisions

Fire Danger Rating

These maps are current for May 10, 2013.

For the most recent weather maps, please see www.bcwildfire.ca/weather

P A G E 4

Most recent forecast for KFC

Valid as of 0900 Friday May 10, 2013 SYNOPSIS: Two more days with the upper ridge of high pressure and sur-face thermal trough of low pressure over the area. Very warm, dry air within the ridge and thermal trough. The air above the morning inversion remains unstable. The upper ridge will remain Sunday morning but a weak cold front will mark the influx of cooler, moist and unstable air into the North Thompson and Monashees during the morning bringing showers and thundershowers with it. The upper ridge will flatten during the afternoon but will have enough strength to weaken the cold front as it pushes into the remainder of the re-gion Sunday afternoon and evening. An upper trough of low pressure will move across the area Monday and Tuesday producing showers and thunder-showers, with much cooler temperatures. TODAY: All Zones: Sunny. Wind light westerly becoming westerly 10 to 20 km/h dur-ing the afternoon. High 26 to 32. Minimum relative humidity 15 to 35 percent. TONIGHT: All Zones: Mainly clear. Wind westerly 10 to 20 km/h becoming light by mid-night. Low 2 to 10. Overnight humidity recoveries 60 to 90 percent except 45 to 60 percent mid levels. TOMORROW: All Zones: Sunny. Risk of isolated thundershowers late in the afternoon in the southwest corner of the region. Wind light becoming southwest 15 to 25 km/h during the afternoon. Fraser Canyon wind southerly 30 to 45 km/h with gusts to 60 km/h during the afternoon. High 25 to 31. Minimum relative humidity 15 to 35 percent. 3 TO 5 DAY OUTLOOK: Increasing cloud Sunday. Showers and/or thunder-showers North Thompson and Monashees during the morning spreading southwestward during the afternoon and evening. High low to mid 20’s. Wind southwest 25 to 35 km/h and gusty. Monday and Tuesday. Cloudy with showers and/or thundershowers. High mid teens to low 20’s. Strong, gusty southwest wind. 6 TO 10 DAY OUTLOOK: Cool wet weather will persist until late in the week. Slow warming and drying for the weekend. VENTING: Poor below 1600 metres. Breakthrough temperature 25. Smoke drift light and variable. 4 DAY VENTING OUTLK: Poor from early evening to early afternoon through the weekend. Good early next week.

WINDS ALOFT: Light and variable to 2500 metres. Westerly 18 km/h above 2500 metres, CONFIDENCE: Good through late tomorrow then fair as the pattern appears to be shifting to more afternoon moisture faster than forecast.

Kamloops Fire

Centre Statistics

Since April 1, 2013:

Fires to date: 38

Hectares burned: 433

Person-caused fires: 38

Lightning-caused fires: 0

2009 at this time:

Fires to date: 84

Hectares burned: 788

Person-caused fires: 78

Lightning-caused fires: 2

2003 at this time:

Fires to date: 21

Hectares burned: 45

Person-caused fires: 19

Lightning-caused fires: 2

Industry Resources

Are you unclear on how or where to provide your company’s emergency contact information?

What’s happening?

The Wildfire Management Branch requests that all persons carrying out industrial activities scheduled

between March 1st and November 1st of each year to let us know where the activity(ies) are taking

place, when it is scheduled, and a 24 hour emergency contact number. This includes all industrial activi-

ties carried out by the oil and gas, mining, energy, alternative energy and utility companies [Clean En-

ergy, transmission, and hydro] companies. Information is requested only for all manned facilities, occur-

ring within 300 metres of forest or grass land.

Also, we understand that plans, priorities and types of activities can change respecting planned and ac-

tual activities. If that happens, we request that an updated form is submitted right away to the fire cen-

tre.

Why are we asking for this information?

First and foremost, this is a public safety issue. We would like to know who is out there, the location and

type of industrial activity being carried out as it relates to the Wildfire Act and Regulation. Wildfire

Management Branch needs to be able to warn people if there is a wildfire in the area.

Secondly, this is a resource issue. We need to maximize our limited resources during fire season. For

example, if smoke is reported in an area, and we know that a person is conducting an industrial activity

at that site, or nearby, Wildfire Management Branch staff would already have the contact information

and be able to contact the person identified on the form and gather more information regarding the

smoke report, rather than dispatching a valuable resource (e.g. aircraft or staff) that could perhaps be

used elsewhere.

Finally, while it may seem like all stakeholders already provide this type of information in various forms

about their activities to government, upon review, there is simply no way to collect the information from the

different applications and amalgamate it in a way it would be useful to the fire centres. In other words, the

information cannot be extracted from across numerous government applications at this time. The only

exception to this is for those individuals or companies that have approved electronic Notices of Work

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: http://bcwildfire.ca/Industry_Stakeholders/industry/

A number of resources are available on our public website bcwildfire.ca under “Stakeholders &

Industry Partners” on the left-hand side of the webpage.

Resources include the British Columbia Fire Hazard and Abatement Fire Risk Map, Danger

Class Reports and information about burning regulations.

P A G E 6

Report a wildfire *5555 on a cell or 1-800-663-5555

Wildfire Information Line 1-888-3FOREST

Burn Registration Line 1-888-797-1717

Kamloops Fire Information Officer 1-250-554-5532

Important Numbers

Fine Fuel Moisture Codes

Want more information? Visit our websites at bcwildfire.ca & firesafebc.ca

The weather information is used to develop codes

that are interpreted with regard to how dry the

different classes of fuels are in the forest. From

this, preparedness levels are set on a daily basis.

The FFMC (Fine Fuel Moisture Code) is a code

which measures the dryness of fine fuels (grasses,

needles, etc). A number of 85 or higher indicates a

good chance of a fire start from an ignition source.

Once 90 or higher is reached, all the fine fuels are

available to burn.

The DMC (Duff Moisture Code) measures about

10 cm into the ground and is an indication of

whether a fire that starts will continue to burn in

the duff. A number of 40 or greater would indicate

that a fire will continue to burn.

The DC is the Drought Code, measuring deeper

in the ground. A number of 300 or greater indi-

cates that the fire will burn deep into the ground,

providing challenges to mop up.

The Dgr. Class is the typical Fire Danger Class

that is seen on fire signage. 1 and 2 represent Low,

3 is Moderate, 4 is High, and 5 is Extreme. A map

of the current fire danger ratings is on page 3.

* If you have any questions about which station

your should be monitoring, please contact your

company forester or fire zone for information.

Deadman Valley Fire—May 9, 2013

P A G E 7

Kamloops Fire Centre Indices May 10, 2013