B.C. wildfire forecasters rely on outdated data as fires grow more extreme

Wildfire forecasters in British Columbia are using predictive models based on data that is decades old, even as they are asked to model more volatile and extreme fires. The forecasting programs, used to estimate rates of spread and fire intensity, rely on observations gathered from fires in the 1990s. CBC reporter Georgie Smyth reported that the last major update to the data was in 1992. The reason for the outdated information is that it is now too dangerous for crews to collect new metrics from the most severe blazes.

The gap between the old data and modern fire behaviour is already showing in the models' performance. On some of the province's toughest fires, the models have underperformed. Smyth cited one blaze where the model predicted only half the spread distance that was actually observed that day. A long stretch of dry weather has made forests in B.C.'s southern Interior especially flammable. Smyth said the area is the driest place in Canada and nowhere else in the country is experiencing as bad a drought.

The region is now seeing explosive fires that can incinerate entire forests. "Some get so intense they create fire clouds," Smyth said. The original database was not built for these conditions. "Those were not the conditions that we collected data for," Smyth explained. In a written report, forecasters said collecting data from life-threatening fires remains a challenge, and controlled experimental burns are not feasible amid heavy drought.

Other methods to gather new data include prescribed burns and a collaboration with NASA, which flies through firestorms to obtain information. Artificial intelligence may become a predictive tool in the future. However, Neal McLoughlin, superintendent of predictive services with the B.C. Wildfire Service, said real-time observations are still the gold standard. "If we're not making an effort to collect that data on the ground to inform these models, they're not going to make good predictions," McLoughlin told the CBC. "It's as simple as that."

With files from The Cool Down and Yahoo News