# Source note — B.C. wildfire trends and real-dollar fire-management budget

Prepared: 2026-08-11

## User lead
The user supplied an image titled roughly “Significant Wildfires in the Okanagan, British Columbia — Historical summary — approximately 1996 to August 9, 2026.” OCR shows it is a selected list of significant Okanagan fires, not a complete BCWS inventory. It was treated as a lead only.

## Fire trend anchors
- BC Wildfire Service wildfire averages page, last updated Feb. 3, 2026: official annual fires/hectares/cost table since 2008.
- BC Wildfire Service 2025 season summary: 2025 had 1,370 starts and 886,300 ha burned, above the 10-year average.
- Parisien et al. 2023, *Communications Earth & Environment*: “Abrupt, climate-induced increase in wildfires in British Columbia since the mid-2000s.”

## Budget anchors
- B.C. Budget Estimates PDFs, 2014–2026.
- Comparable line used: older **Direct Fire** and later **Fire Management** voted appropriation in Ministry of Forests / predecessor ministry Estimates.
- Inflation conversion used Statistics Canada Table 18-10-0005 annual average CPI, British Columbia, All-items, converted to 2024 dollars.

## Key figures
- 2014/15 Direct Fire: $63.165M nominal; about $82.4M in 2024 dollars.
- 2024/25 Fire Management: $232.736M nominal/2024 dollars.
- 2025/26 Fire Management: $238.047M nominal; about $233.1M in 2024 dollars.
- 2015–2024 BCWS average: 1,531 fires/year and 791,278 ha/year.
- 2008–2014 BCWS average: about 1,772 fires/year and 157,143 ha/year.

## Caveats
The budget comparison is a consistent estimate-line comparison, not a full accounting of every wildfire-related dollar, prevention/fuel-treatment program, emergency appropriation, local-government cost, recovery cost or FireSmart/CRI stream. Adequacy cannot be inferred from this line alone.