A prescribed burn being conducted in this file photo. (Image Credit: BC Wildfire Service)
Wildfire Preparation

Pair of prescribed burns in Kamloops postponed because of unfavourable weather

Apr 4, 2025 | 1:57 PM

KAMLOOPS — A pair of prescribed burns in Kamloops city limits that were scheduled for this spring have been delayed until at least this winter because of unfavourable weather.

Kamloops Fire Chief Ken Uzeloc says while crews were able to complete an eight-hectare burn at Rose Hill Park last month, two others at Peterson Creek Nature Park and the Lac Du Bois Grasslands had to be postponed because of wet and windy weather.

“We don’t want to have a prescribed burn in a situation where the wind picks up too much or that it’s too wet and we’re not going to get the burn that we want to be effective and meet the outcomes,” Uzeloc told CFJC Today.

“As much as I like the rain, if that rain hadn’t come, we might have been able to get another burn done, but I’ll take the moisture.”

Uzeloc says the 17-hectare burn at Peterson Creek Nature Park, which was expected to get underway as early as March 5, had to be cancelled at the last minute. He is urging caution, saying he would have preferred if the other two burns would have been done before the summer wildfire season.

“There’s a lot of factors that get looked at around having a burn and we got the Rose Hill one done,” Uzeloc said. “We were all good to go at Peterson Creek but the day before the weather changed and the forecast wasn’t good so it got cancelled the afternoon before we were going to be doing it.”

“Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate in the small window that we had but we do plan for these, we prepare for these but the best thing the public can do is to pay attention to the FireSmart principles and action them.”

No date was announced for the ten-hectare burn in a publicly-owned area of the Lac Du Bois Grasslands near Batchelor Heights.

“Prescribed fire is a proven land management tool that helps restore ecological balance, protect critical infrastructure, and enhance community safety by reducing the intensity and spread of potential wildfires,” a statement from the City of Kamloops said.

“The prescribed burn project objectives include wildfire risk reduction, low-intensity surface fire application, ecological restoration, invasive species removal and overgrown sagebrush reduction.”

For more information on wildfire protection in Kamloops, go here.