Province to Clamp Down on Those With Campfires

By 250 News

Warren Burkensaw of the Prince George Fire Centre, and Minister of Forests and Range, Pat Bell,  meet with media click on photo or video icon for  video clip from  news conference

Prince George, B.C.- If you build a campfire this weekend, expect to  receive a ticket  that will cost you $345 dollars.  Tossing a cigarette will carry a fine too.

Minister of Forests and Range, Pat Bell says the Province is taking a no tolerance approach to campfires "We've all had experience with campfires, we know that small sparks  comes from these fires that can easily land  in the forest and as tinder dry as they ( the forests) are today, they can very quickly  start a  fire that can get away from us."

Bell says  the campfire ban will be enforced "I can tell you  that over the last week and a half we have issues  54 tickets  across three fire districts,  but in addition,  we found a  100 campfires and five  abandoned campfires burning as well.  More and more importantly we are getting more public complaints about  people having campfires when they shouldn't"  Those complaints amounted to 300 over the long weekend.

Heading into this weekend, Bell  says there will be plenty of people on the ground in the Province to  issue  those tickets.  "I can tell you  that  as of this weekend we will have  200 compliance and enforcement officers on the ground across the province.  They will be using rotary wing, fixed wing, boats , vehicles in the bush to  monitor this type of fire activity.  We're going to be looking for  smoke fromn the sky, traking down these people very very quickly and issuing these  tickets."    He also says  if you are attending such a campfire, whether you are the one who started the fire or not, will result in a ticket "You have an equal responsibility to  make sure the  people you're camping with  are  not behaving  inappropriately and you need to make sure  they're aware of that."

So far, the Province has spent $134.5 million dollars battling fires  which have consumed 84,962 hectares  of forest in the province.  The budget for the year was  $62 million.  in comparison,  the fires  in 2003  cost the Province  $220 million. 

Bell says  there may be other steps taken  to  ensure the safety of the public, including  banning  all activity in the backcountry.

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