Penticton Fire Dept chief: 'Think about the ground as matchsticks.'

Don't be fooled by the cloudy, cool months we just experienced and all those green mountainsides. We're currently in the midst of a worrisome drought and can expect an "active" 2023 fire season.

So says Penticton Fire Dept. chief Larry Watkinson, a guy who knows of what he speaks.

Not only is Watkinson the boss of the biggest urban fire brigade in the South Okanagan, he's also a self-professed "fire nerd" who studies the stuff -- especially the wildfire stuff -- like crazy and is the founder of the Wildfire Urban Interface Symposium, an event that annually attracted 300-plus provincial firefighters to Penticton until the provincial government took it over this year.

In fact, Watkinson just returned from North Vancouver, where he taught at this year's symposium. The curriculum? Helping structural firefighters (the type you'll find in cities and towns) get more familiar with working "interface" fires (where urban meets rural).

"Right now," explained Watkinson, "because we haven't received any significant precipitation, our drought codes are extreme.

"The fine fuels, the grassy fuels you see right now that are still green on the mountainside, they're still pretty good when it comes to ignition. But if there is an ignition, the larger fuels -- logs and heavier debris and the duff layer (partially decayed organic material on the forest floor) under it are significantly dry.

"So the fires may take a little extra to get going, but if it gets going, we'll have dramatic and deep fire growth. Like we're (currently) seeing in the north."

According to Watkinson, "everyone is kind of holding their breath" to see if June is a wet or dry month, adding that the ferocity of the fire season, as it generally does, will hinge on June's rains.

But the lead-up hasn’t been great.

"When was the last time you remember having (multiple) days of rain?" he asked. "And here we are in May and we're getting temperatures over 30 for days in a row.

"We need copious amounts of rain to improve the situation. Otherwise, as soon as that green goes to brown, we'll be in an extreme situation."

Watkinson advises that anyone recreating in rural areas exercise caution -- to safeguard not only themselves but the world around them.

"When you step off the asphalt and into the bush," he said, "think about the things that would be best for you to do. Like, not having a cigarette, not having a fire.

"Think about your best practices with machinery. Are you using a motocross or an ATV? Do you have a spark arrestor? You're not in the urban core. You're now in an extremely dry forested environment.

"Think about the ground as matchsticks."

Watkinson's also beating a familiar drum. It's the drum that begins with "fire" and ends with "smart."

"People should be FireSmarting their homes and properties," he said. "Cleaning their gutters, making sure their cedar hedges are removed from their houses, removing dry needles and leaves, making sure the debris and litter that piles up around a home because that's where the wind pushes it is removed because that's exactly where the embers will go in the event of a wildfire."

And it's those embers that are so concerning, Watkinson emphasized.

"I've been on fires where we've seen spot fires up to 17 kilometers from the head of the fire," he said. "It's not just the small debris, it's the heavier stuff. It gets lifted by the convective currents of the fire that creates its own weather, then it gets pulled into the big column of smoke and lands way, way down.

"It's still hot and it lands on these fine fuels that are extremely dry and that ignites another fire. That's what just happened in Fort St. John. They have two fires there now."

Having said all of the above, Watkinson also wants residents to know there's good news too.

"I'm proud to say we have the most advanced pre-incident wildfire interface response plan of anyone in our nation," he said. "We’ve really stepped up our game when it comes to wildfire preparedness in Penticton, and there's a behavioural change amongst our residents from our FireSmart model that's made a major impact also."

Going forward, Watkinson expects to slap a burn ban on the PFD jurisdiction when "all that green grass turns brown" in the coming weeks. He also won't hesitate to charge those who don’t conform to the ban.

"If you have a fire and we have a fire ban on, or you have a fire and you don’t have a specific permit, or you're negligent and step away from a fire and don’t have control measures in place, you'll get charged the full cost of the burden of the fire department to respond to that fire.

"We charge a pretty hefty amount. It's basically $1,000 an hour, for each truck."

For a ton of really good info on the local FireSmart program, including a highly informative home walk-around video starring none other than our fire chief, head here.