PARKSVILLE – Effective at 12:00 p.m. (noon) PDT on Thursday, July 17, 2025, campfires will be prohibited throughout the Coastal Fire Centre, excluding the Haida Gwaii Forest District and the portion of the Central Coast Regional District that falls within the North Island Central Coast Forest District. This prohibition is being enacted to help prevent human caused wildfires and protect public safety.
Category 2 and Category 3 open fire prohibitions remain in place for the Coastal Fire Centre’s jurisdiction, with the exception that Category 2 open fires will be allowed in the Haida Gwaii Forest District. To learn more about the different categories of open burning, visit the Open fire and safer burning webpage.
These prohibitions will be in place until October 31, 2025, or until the order is rescinded.
A map of the affected areas is available online.
This prohibition applies to all areas in the Fire Centre that are outside of municipal boundaries. (Otter Point Fire Protection District included)
In addition, this prohibition applies to the following types of land within municipal boundaries:
- Parks, conservancies and recreation areas (Park Act);
- Recreation sites, recreation trails, interpretive forest sites and trail-based recreation areas (Forest and Range Practices Act);
- Ecological reserves (Ecological Reserve Act);
- Wildlife management areas (Wildlife Act); and
- Private managed forest land (Private Managed Forest Land Act).
In addition to open fires being prohibited, the following activities and equipment are also restricted in most areas:
- Fireworks; as defined in the Fireworks Act;
- Binary Exploding Targets;
- Sky Lanterns
- Wood fired hot tubs, wood fired pizza ovens and other wood fired devices unless vented through a structure that has a flue and is incorporated in a building;
- Burn Barrels or Burn Cages of any size or description;
- Controlled air incinerators
- Air curtain burners; and
- Carbonizers.
Please review the full list of prohibited activities and equipment in your area here.
This prohibition does not include the use of outdoor stoves. As per the Wildfire Regulation, an outdoor stove is a CSA-rated or ULC-rated device used outdoors for cooking, heat or ambiance that burns charcoal briquettes, liquid fuel or gaseous fuel, and has a flame height that is less than 15 cm tall.
Open fire is the largest cause of human-caused fires provincially. Human-caused wildfires are entirely preventable and may divert crucial resources from naturally occurring and/or existing wildfires. Prohibitions are a useful tool used to reduce the likelihood of more human-caused fires in anticipation of increased lightning-caused fires or during critical fire situations.
Anyone found in contravention of an open fire prohibition may be issued a violation ticket for $1,150, required to pay an administrative penalty of up to $10,000 or, if convicted in court, fined up to $100,000 and/or sentenced to one year in jail. If the contravention causes or contributes to a wildfire, the person responsible may be ordered to pay all firefighting and associated costs.
The Coastal Fire Centre covers all the area west of the height of land on the Coast Mountain Range from the U.S.-Canada border at Manning Park, including Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park in the north, the Sunshine Coast, the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and Haida Gwaii.
To report a wildfire, call 1 800 663-5555 toll-free or *5555 on a cell phone or report via the BC Wildfire Service App. For the latest information on current wildfire activity, burning restrictions and other related advisories, go to: http://www.bcwildfire.ca
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