The 2023 wildfire season is officially the most expensive and most destructive on record.
According to the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS), a total of 2,217 fires have been detected this year, burning almost 25,000 square kilometres of trees, bush and grassland. That makes it B.C.'s worst season by land burned, easily surpassing the previous record of 13,540 square kilometres in 2018.
The cost of fighting those fires is also significantly up, to approximately $770 million so far this year, more than the $649 million spent in 2017.
On Thursday, the B.C. government said higher-than-projected costs to fight wildfires had contributed an additional $2.5 billion to the province’s projected deficit for this fiscal year.
The government is projecting the total spend for the 2023/24 fiscal year to be $966 million.
The majority of this year’s fires — approximately 71 per cent — have been sparked by lightning, while 23 per cent are human-caused, the fire service says.