B.C. firefighters still rely on wildfire models based on 1990s data

B.C. wildfire specialists say some of the province’s fire prediction tools are struggling to keep up with the intensity of recent blazes in the Southern Interior. The article follows Neal McLoughlin of the B.C. Wildfire Service as he compares model output with what happened during the Bald Range wildfire near Summerland on Aug. 7, when fastmoving flames forced mass evacuations. The core issue is that the modelling system is built on data gathered decades ago, before today’s hotter, drier conditions and more extreme fire behaviour became more common. On very hot and dry days, forecasters say the software can underestimate how aggressively a fire will spread, so crews are relying more heavily on field experience and judgment. Researchers say updating the system is difficult because the most useful data on extreme fire events is expensive and dangerous to collect. While new research and targeted updates are being developed, officials say the current tools still work better for more typical winddriven fires than for the increasingly common columndriven, pyrocumulusproducing blazes seen in recent seasons.