DATE: Aug 16, 2017
SNIP: It’s official: the B.C. Wildfire Service confirms the province is experiencing the worst wildfire season on record.
Wildfire Service information officer Kevin Skrepnek says an estimated 894,941 hectares of land has been charred in B.C. since April 1.
That eclipses the mark set in 1958, when 855,000 hectares burned.
More than 2,500,000 acres have burned there since April 1, nearly six times the typical amount for a full year.
B.C. extended a state of emergency on Friday to help speed the flow of aid to affected communities. More than $300 million has been spent fighting the fires so far, and one remote wildfire is so out of control that the B.C. Wildfire Service called it “a force of nature.”
Though fire season is more than half over, there’s still time for the B.C. wildfires to grow. The latest forecast from Natural Resources Canada shows extreme fire danger in parts of British Columbia, with an outlook for above average severity through the end of September.