Prince George, B.C. – As of yesterday, there had been 942 wildfires in B.C. since April 1st,  but most were sparked by lightning.

Of those  fires,  507 have been  confirmed to have been started by lightning,  a further 364 have confirmed to have been human caused. Those numbers  won’t  add up to the total  number of fires so far, because  the causes  have not yet been classified for a number of  fires.

As it stands at the moment,  where cause has been determined,  43.3% have been deemed  the result of human activity ” That  ratio is pretty bang  on” says BC Wildfire Service Chief Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek.   “Usually  by the time we’ve reached the end of the season,  we’re  usually at about a 60-40 split, with 60% naturally occurring fires, to 40% human caused fires.”

He says   most human caused fires happen  early in the season when there isn’t typically a lot of lightning, “So usually we have a higher percentage of human caused fires at that point.  Once  we get into the summer and we see more lightning activity, things start to  balance out a bit.”

Between 2006 and 2016,  the  average percentage of human caused fires in BC was 38.7%.   The worst year  within that time frame was 2011 when 68% of  the fires were human caused.   The lowest  year was  2009, when 28.8%  of all  fires in the Province  were  caused by humans.