A firefighter with the British Columbia Wildfire Service keeps a look out at the head of a wildfirefire burning near a highway outside Vanderhoof in northern B.C. on July 11.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
British Columbia has ordered the oil and gas industry to temporarily stop diverting water to operations in one northeast district, and is now considering banning water use by other industries in other parts of the province, as it tries to conserve resources for its fight against the twin crises of drought and wildfires.
At a news conference in Vancouver on Thursday, government officials explained that B.C.’s government is also working with municipalities, regional districts and First Nations to escalate restrictions on personal water usage.
More than two thirds of the province’s rivers are experiencing high to extreme levels of drought, and the dry weather is forecast to continue. Connie Chapman, the lead on water policy at the province’s Ministry of Forests, said the province may be forced to bring in new temporary orders that could affect industries such as agriculture.
She said the province is also working to identify companies that are taking water without licences, to crack down on that illegal usage.
B.C. Emergency Management and Climate Change Readiness Minister Bowinn Ma didn’t answer a question about which industries could be affected by future temporary water bans. But she said she wouldn’t be surprised if the measures hit “everybody, down to smaller businesses, as well.”
“It’s continuous. They’re assessing it actively and taking action as required,” she said as she left the news conference.
Canada’s wildfire approach needs to shift from reactive to proactive
The oil and gas industry ban went into effect on Wednesday, when the BC Energy Regulator ordered fracking companies in the Peace and Liard River watersheds, in the northeast of the province, to stop using river and lake water, citing low water flows in those regions.
The need for these measures was underscored Thursday by a report on drought conditions from B.C.’s River Forecast Centre. The report says the combination of record heat in May, followed by early snow melt and persistently low levels of precipitation, has now parched much of the province. It adds that most of B.C. has received between 40 per cent and 85 per cent of its usual precipitation over the past year.
Some rivers on Vancouver Island, and in the central and northeastern parts of the province, are at the highest level of drought severity, Level 5, while other major rivers in the Kootenays and the B.C. Interior are getting close.
The report’s author, hydrologist Jonathan Boyd, said the timing of the end of the water shortages will depend on the amounts of rain the province receives in September and October. He added that clearing up the drought conditions would require a large rainfall event, like the atmospheric river that pummelled B.C. in 2021 and led to catastrophic winter floods.
For now, the drought is exacerbating what experts have predicted will be the worst wildfire season in the past century, for B.C. and Canada.
There are more than 350 wildfires burning in all corners of B.C., and the BC Wildfire Service has warned that another blast of heat could add to the burden on already-overstretched firefighting crews.
On the other side of the Rockies, there are 117 wildfires burning in Alberta, according to the province’s online database.
B.C. wildfire officials told Thursday’s news conference their firefighters are exhausted. Ms. Ma said her government has requested 1,000 additional international firefighters. She said a team from Australia is arriving on Saturday.
There are already 160 international fire personnel from Mexico and the United States now deployed in B.C. Firefighters from South Korea, France, South Africa and the Dominican Republic have been working elsewhere in Canada.
Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair told reporters earlier on Thursday that he was expecting a “fairly substantive” request for help from B.C., and that Ottawa was ready to assist.
“For the last 48 hours we’ve been working with Canadian Armed Forces, Parks Canada, Natural Resources Canada and people from the Canadian Coast Guard,” Mr. Blair said. “There’s a lot of different federal departments all mobilizing their response to the requirements of British Columbia.”
He added the federal aid could include military assistance for airlift evacuations from remote locations, as well as help from members of the military trained as firefighters, who can provide “mop up” services to keep blazes from reigniting once they’ve been put out.
With a report from The Canadian Press