Wildfire Costs Eclipse $200 Million Mark
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Fire Information Officer Navi Saini with the BC Wildfire Management Branch says the bulk of that total has come from fighting fires in the Prince George Fire Centre ($55.3 million).
This year's cost has easily surpassed last year's total of $122.2 million and even the ten year average of (2003-2014) $170.4 million.
The most expensive fire season over that span was the $382.1 million spent in 2009.
And Saini says this fire season is far from over with 175 fires burning province wide including 13 fires of note.
The wildfire budget this year was $63 million with the extra costs covered by a contingency fund set up by the provincial government.
"The province will always spend what's necessary to protect people and property. When actual costs exceed the Direct Fire budget, the Wildfire Management Branch has statutory authorization to receive additional funds," says Public Affairs Officer Greig Bethel with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations.
Here are the detailed wildfire costs for the past 10 years:
- Year Cost (in millions)
- 2013 $122.2
- 2012 $133.6
- 2011 $53.4
- 2010 $212.1
- 2009 $382.1
- 2008 $82.1
- 2007 $98.8
- 2006 $159.0
- 2005 $47.2
- 2004 $64.5
- 2003 $371.2
Comments
So maybe the government could dig into their contingency fund to protect education.
I worked for the forest service in the 60 sties we fought a lot of forest fires but in the end mother nature
.took care of everything.We had to be accountable for all of our costs from hauling guys out of the pub and into for example a cattle truck to why did I buy gas at that gas station.My boss’s were very strict. Today the forest service seems to have a blank check when it comes to fighting fires. In 2010 when we had a fire storm south of Burns and Fraser Lake I was on the payroll,not for money (I am Retired) and was operating a crawler tractor. when the foresrty showed up at the end of the day and asked me what I had done I told him and he singed me off. He had no idea what i had done and OKed a bill for $ 890.00. I could could have been a drunk from the pub in town and got into the lineup for a heafty pay check.I give the guys credit for the work they do but this is our money they are spending please be careful how you spend it.PS at the end of the fire season I am going to ask the Auditor General to do an inquiry into the spending habits of fire supression in the forests of our province
Um they no longer empty the pubs.
Well I think they found a pot of cash from not paying the teachers!
The blank check description has a whole lot of merit poor gold miner. Too many people fighting fires are permitted to spend our money. You wouldn’t believe the waste. I lived it for a long time.
oldman1 the bctf wants more than we spent on fires this year annually on top of their wage increases. Plus 225 million back pay on top of all that, and 5000 signing bonus per teacher, the contingency fund isn’t that big
Perhaps the feds and the provinces can be persuaded to get together and make a nation wide plan for fighting these annually predictable forest fires.
Instead of buying fighter attack jets they could buy a brand new fleet of the most modern (designed to fight forest fires) large planes and helicopters to snuff out fires before they get totally out of hand. The flying part could become part of the peace time work of the Canadian military.
Of course this idea would never fly! It is too new and advanced and therefore a bit too threatening to the established thinking…
I respect the young men and women for fight forrest fires. There is more to them than just money. It takes a special bunch to do that kind of work.
Hmmmm, I had thought it had surpassed the 382 million. 200 million isn’t all bad. Its going to start cooling off in a week. with mop up, its probably still going to be under 300 million
I like the national firefighting force in the form of military training and assistance and government owned water bombers idea, can’t be much different to fly than a bomber or cargo carrier for logging hours and training pilots. Sometimes the best ideas come from “small minds” of the public.
Kind of funny that if we would have let more fires burn over the decades we woulnd’t have had a 600% increase in old growth pine from 1935 to 1999 (verifiable through aerial photographs from the 30s- foresters can age trees from pics) we woulnd’t have had the beetle epidemic.
There are only two options for our boreal fire driven forests. Log them faster or let them burn.
So either the amount of wood cut is too low or we need to let nature take it’s course.
Question is which one pays taxes so our kids can get educated.
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