A campfire ban will take effect across the Coastal Fire Centre — including Vancouver Island — at noon on Thursday, July 17. The Category 1 fire prohibition was announced by fire information officer Kimberly Kelly earlier this week. This prohibition is being enacted to help prevent human caused wildfires and protect public safety.

This prohibition applies to all areas in the Fire Centre that are outside of municipal boundaries.

In addition, this prohibition applies to the following types of land within municipal boundaries:

• Parks, conservancies and recreation areas,
• Recreation sites, recreation trails, interpretive forest sites and trail-based recreation areas,
• Ecological reserves.
• Wildlife management areas and
• Private managed forest land.

In addition to open fires being prohibited, the following activities and equipment are also restricted in most areas:

• Fireworks,
• 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,
• Carbonizers.

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.

Be safe this summer and always report smoke, wildfire and unattended campfires. There are a number of ways to report:

• Call 1-800-663-5555 toll-free,
• Call *5555 from a cell phone,
• Submit directly through the BC Wildfire Service mobile app.