^back in Chetwynd eh Slimmy?
I once worked with a guy who believed that the fires (2018 or 2017 fire season) were "caused by Trudeau". All a part of a scheme to force everyone to move to a city (and you know, presumably eat bugs or whatever).
BUM asked a few pages ago about beetle kill. I'd add to the comments by our resident fire fighting heroes; a surplus of "fuel" from beetle kill is a major contributor to runaway fires. So is poor forest management; a lack of spacing leading to dead trees and "monocrops" of pine and other conifers with no belts of deciduous hydrophilic trees like poplars is disastrous when fires grow large (especially pertinent in the boreal like NE BC and NW AB right now).
A prime cause of all this fuel in montane fir/spruce, pine predominant, sub boreal spruce etc is our current and relatively novel policy of fire suppression. As the yahoos have noted, fire can create very biodiversity habitats. The ecosystems of most of North America having been managed with seasonal burning for over ten thousand years.
By suppressing fires we end up with lots of fuel, poor biodiversity and a lack of natural regeneration for pyrophilic species like lodgepoles. Poorly spaced monocrops are planted, average temperatures rise significantly, and you end up with a situation like we are seeing in Tumbler Ridge right now.
Yes, fires can and are sometimes caused by arson. Firefighting is solid good paying seasonal employment in desperate remote communities. This is neither here nor there in terms of how large fires become and how early in the year these fires catch.
Not to mention spruce and fir trees have pests of their own. With ranges expanding further north all the time.
I flew over the area around the nation lakes north of Fort St James a lot around 7-8 years ago. Serious beetle kill had been through the area.
Idyllic northern BC, moose standing on the shores of oxbow streams that would be called rivers anywhere else, 10 lb "dolly vardens" with every cast, you know the deal.
Oh, and if you flew a few minutes to north kms and kms of area that looked like a moonscape with the biggest free range lumber yard of clear cut beetle infested trees you have ever seen. This is what all of BC looks like if this #### continues
When it's 35 degrees in may/June in the cariboo chilcotin and even hotter south of there and the forests are full of fuel there's bound to be some bad results.
There I go, slamming my #### in the drawer