A smoke advisory was put out early Sunday evening for the east and south coast of Vancouver Island, with Metro Vancouver being the first to issue an air quality advisory Sunday afternoon after a gloomy overcast rolled into the region.
Advertisement
The advisory means city residents with medical conditions are advised to refrain from heavy exercise and stay indoors.
“People with pre-existing heart or lung conditions, with diabetes, pregnant women, the very young, the very old… those are the people we’re most concerned with”, said UBC School of Population and Public Health Professor Michael Brauer.
As of Monday night, 185 forest fires were burning across the province, from Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island to Pemberton about 70 miles north of Vancouver, to Nelson in Southeast British Columbia.
There are now 184 active fires being fought across B.C. with nine evacuation alerts and orders now in effect, impacting over 800 homes.
Officials handling the Paradise Fire, which has been burning in a remote part of the Olympic National Park, say local 911 dispatchers in the area have been swamped with calls.
Metro Vancouver air quality planner Geoff Doerksen said fine particulate concentrations from the smoke have hit levels never seen before across the entire Lower Mainland.
The province has seen more than 900 fires since April 1.
Metro Vancouver usually flags anything over 25 micrograms of particulate per cubic metre of air as a potential problem.
Air quality warnings spread across British Columbia south to Colorado and east to Minnesota as the smoke drifted across North America.
He said the pattern of high temperature and fires are a sure sign of climate change.
On Sunday, a 61-year-old logger from Gibson’s B.C., died while helping forestry crews battle a wildfire near Sechelt, north of Vancouver, prompting an investigation by the coroners service and WorkSafeBC.
Advertisement
Reports from Canada say it is one of the worst seasons for wildfires ever, with almost 300 wildfires combined in three provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
