While a more detailed look at what the upcoming fire season will be is set to be shared on April 16, Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar said B.C. is making sure to be prepared for the worst.
The provincial minister spoke with members of the media after attending the engine boss training at the Penticton Wildfire Resiliency and Training Summit and ahead of heading out to see the structural fire training.
"I want British Columbians to know that we are as a government, we are as the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) preparing for worst-case scenarios," said Parmar. "We have no idea what the 2025 wildfire season is going to bring today, but we are taking the steps through this training conference, the innovation and technology that we're embedding into our work, and a whole host of other things to be as ready as we can to protect communities and protect people."
Over 100 structural firefighting units from departments across the province, and hundreds of firefighters from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE), are also attending and participating in the summit, which begins with two days of training followed by discussions and planning.
The training is only one step in the preparations for the coming year, and Parmar pointed to newly announced technology such as new night vision equipment and more precision survey data for fires that will be available for crews in the coming fire season.
"We've also got unique partnerships like we have with UBC Okanagan that has detection cameras being installed all across the province to better inform the data we collect and better inform where fires start as well," said Parmar.
The BCWS is also looking at how winds play a role in fires, taking on the lessons from the California wildfires where crews weren't able to safely respond to areas when the winds became too dangerous.
Beyond the new technology, Parmar spoke on pre-emptive wildfire mitigation efforts, from improving communication around the importance of homeowners making their properties FireSmart to recent conversations about the importance of timber sales in mitigation, and the return of cultural burns.
In the Similkameen Valley, the Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands both conducted major cultural burns in 2025, and Parmar said there were more planned across the province.
"I think we've got about 90 that are already projected for this season," said Parmar. "I was chatting with the Chief of the Penticton Indian Band earlier today about how they have been doing cultural and prescribed burns since time immemorial and it's really important as we do this work given the context of climate change that even prescribed burns can be a little bit dangerous as well, but here's an opportunity for us to be able to work with local First Nations BC Wildfire Service to be able to support them."
The update on April 16 will include additional Ministers who will speak to the overall outlook for the summer wildfire season. Parmar noted that matters like low snowpack levels and ongoing drought conditions are definitely concerns but that it's currently too soon to predict exactly what the fire season will look like.
And in a world where international tensions are high, Parmar assured that in a worst-case scenario, British Columbians could still rely on the support from groups like CALFIRE.
"I think there's a sense of pride that we should have as British Columbians that BC Wildfire Service got the call specifically to come down and help CALFIRE," said Parmar who noted that he had also gone down to California during the fires. "When our crews got down there, relationships were already built, we weren't starting from scratch, and typical orientations that would happen and protocols that would be developed didn't need to be because the relationships already existed."
"I think if you ask the over 400 plus firefighters that are in this room today if their friends needed help, they would be there because they do that every single day and that's what was really special."
The biggest item that Parmar emphasized was the need for people to stay connected and informed, whether through the BC Wildfire Service app, social media, or through local news organizations providing updates.
