There have been large wildfires on Cortes Island in the distant past. The largest shown in the 2011 Wildfire protection plan was more than 330 acres in extent, and there were two fires that burned close to 250 acres. Those were in 1932, 1924 and 1923, respectively. There hasn’t been a fire larger than 10 hectares since at least 1950. 

This could change, as our summers become warmer and dryer. 

Last week Premier Eby declared a state of emergency in face of the worst wildfire season in BC’s history. 

While there are no major fires in our immediate vicinity, the BC Wildfire service says, “We are in a drought condition. Our forest fire fuels are very dry and the ignition potential is extremely high.” So Cortes Currents asked interim Fire Chief Eli McKenty what the situation is like on Cortes Island.

“ … we’re definitely not out of the woods yet.”

“Conditions on Cortes right now are slightly better than they have been,  but  most of the wildfire weather stations in our area are still ranked 4, which is very high fire danger, so we’re definitely not out of the woods yet,” he began.

“Without looking at the stats, to me it seems like it has been hotter and drier than average this year, although we also had a pretty hot year last year.  We certainly haven’t had as much rain as normal.”

“As wildfires on the island, we’ve had two starts this year, which I believe is actually below average. We had a grass fire in March, and it was spreading, but it was very easily controlled because it was still quite cool and damp out. So it was not a significant fire.”

“Then we had the fire in June, which was probably the most significant wildfire we’ve had on Cortes since I joined the fire department in 2014, and that one could also have been a lot worse. We had a 30 knot northwest wind. It was hot and dry, and had been dry for some time. As far as we were able to determine, the fire was caused by a downed power line. If it had been a hundred meters further in either direction, it would have been a completely different story, as far as our ability to quickly and easily suppress it. Where it happened to be, it was trapped by some bluffy terrain. That meant it was trying to spread down slope and upwind, which gave us time to get it under control.”

“ … We could easily have been looking at a much larger fire, in the tens of hectares.”

CC: How big were these fires in terms of hectares?

EM: “The grass fire in March was about 50 feet by 100 feet, so it was quite small and the fire in June was about a half a hectare.”

CC: That actually makes them seem small.

EM: “The way that fire was behaving in June, if it hadn’t been confined by the terrain, we could easily have been looking at a much larger fire, in the tens of hectares. Or we could have been looking  at a large-scale evacuation. We were super fortunate as to where it ignited. The terrain really helped us to get it under control.”

CC: What do prospects look like for the rest of this summer and fall? 

EM: “The rest of the summer and fall,  BC Wildfire is still listing this area as high fire danger and their latest forecast is we’re still looking at above normal temperatures through most of the province into at least mid September. They are expecting near normal precipitation amounts, but their confidence in the longer range precipitation forecast is generally low, so they’re expecting continued elevated fire danger and fire activity in the southwest and northeastern corners of the province if we don’t get a lot of rain. So basically it’s still higher fire danger than usual forecast through the middle of September. I know we’re supposed to get a bunch more hot weather in about a week, and it’s still pretty dry out there.”

Cortes Island’s new Wildfire Brigade

CC: Let’s talk about Cortes Island’s new wildfire brigade

EM: “That’s something I’m quite excited about.” 

CC: How many people are you hoping to get? 

EM: “I was hoping for up to 20 for this year. We ended up getting 13 people who signed up and took the training and  they’re now certified to the provincial wildfire fighting standard.”

“I’m super excited to have them on board. They are department members who are trained to the wildfire level and they’re a reserve force, if you will, for the fire department. So for a small fire that we can easily suppress with our regular members, we probably wouldn’t call them out, but  anything larger than that, it means we can quite quickly get additional boots on the ground. It gives us a better chance at stopping something while it’s still small.

CC: Are you looking for more members? 

EM: “I definitely intend to bring on more members. We’ll probably wait till June of next year and then we’ll do another recruitment drive and another round of training.” 

CC: I know that trainees are expected to take a couple of courses and there is an online component as well. What does this mean, in terms of time commitment?

EM: “The S 100 and the S 185 are the two foundational courses that all BC wildfire fighters in the province take, and it’s a requirement for loggers and people who operate in the forest as well. Those two courses are delivered over two days.  We also did some practical drills and went over the Cortes Fire Department communication and safety training, some elements to add into it, and then they will also be completing an Online Incident Command System course.”

“The online component is listed as taking somewhere around 7 to 10 hours but, in fact, most people can get through it in about 3 hours. It’s fairly straightforward. It’s super useful information though.” 

CC: How physically fit do Wildfire Brigade members need to be? 

EM: “I had all of the new members go through a version of the basic firefighter fitness test that some of the other departments around here use. It’s less strenuous than the one that the B. C. Wildfire Service uses,  but it still demonstrates a certain level of physical fitness. There are always roles that  require more or less physical fitness.  Ideally, I would like all the members to be quite fit and able to take any of the roles, but there are also people with strong skills in other areas and  we can always make use of people in one important way or another.”

“The ongoing commitment for the wildfire members is the annual training, because the S 100 and S 185 have to be renewed every year. We intend to run the whole course every year and have everyone go through the whole thing just to keep their skills fresh. There is an online refresher you can do for the S 100, which is a much smaller time commitment, but I would rather see all the members get hands-on training every year.”

“In addition to that, we’ll run a series of full department wildfire drills  including the wildfire members as well as the regular members, and I think we’ll run one in June, July, August and September one drill each month of the summer going forward. So we have a drill coming up that will include the new members and our existing members on the 29th of this month, which I’m looking forward to.”  

Recruitment for Regular Firefighters starts in September

“We’re also recruiting now for regular department members. Our new member intake is at the beginning of September. So we’re looking for regular members, which is a much bigger commitment than the wildfire members, especially during the initial six months. If they miss the initial Tuesday night training, then there’s sections of the basic training that they have to go back around and do, which can be hard to organize. So we need people for Tuesday nights from 7:00 till 9:00.  Then ongoing,  we require people to make at least half of the Tuesdays and ideally 75%.”  

“There are also courses that we put on, like weekend courses for auto extrication and the wildfire course. Medical courses which can be 4 or 5 days. Air brakes is another one.” 

“There are other courses, which are not mandatory, but they’re important and  we try to run them every year.  If people aren’t available for the dates, then they can get in on them the next year.”

“It’s a pretty big commitment and we need people who are serious about it, but it’s also very rewarding. I’ve really enjoyed it over the years.” 

CC: “Is there anything you would like to add to anything we’ve been talking about or have not talked about.” 

EM: “I’d like to make a shout out to the community. I think that people’s awareness of wildfire risk and their efforts at mitigating that through fire smart preparedness and all of that continues to grow. I think that’s super important.” 

“Also, I think we’ve had fewer burning complaints this year than some years, which is good and indicates that people are being careful and aware of the dangers. So all of that’s very encouraging.”

Top photo credit: Members of the Cortes Island Fire Department that suppressed the wildfire in June 2023 – Photo courtesy

Sign-up for Cortes Currents email-out:

To receive an emailed catalogue of articles on Cortes Currents, send a (blank) email to subscribe to your desired frequency:

• Daily, (articles posted during the last 24 hours) – cortescurrents-daily+subscribe@cortes.groups.io
• Weekly Digest cortescurrents – cortescurrents-weekly+subscribe@cortes.groups.io