U.S. warns of another busy wildfire season, but B.C. cautious to sound alarm

After two record-breaking wildfire seasons, officials in B.C. say 2019 could be another busy year but are cautious to say whether it will measure up. That’s despite warnings from U.S. counterparts that last year’s deadly fires that decimated the West Coast could be repeated. Kyla Fraser with the B.C. Wildfire Service said Friday while its predictive model is estimating some higher-than-normal temperatures and a busy fire season, she added that should be taken with a grain of salt. “It’s important to recognize that 2017 and 2018 were vastly beyond what we would consider a normal fire season,” she said. “So that prediction doesn’t necessarily mean we will see conditions worse than the last two years.” …Concerns are growing as forecasters on both sides of the border are seeing moderate drought in some areas of the West Coast due to a below-average snowpack.