Holdover wildfires: Why B.C. may see more overwinter fires flare up this season

One of the largest wildfires burning in Western Canada is the Patry Creek fire, 25 kilometres north of Fort Nelson, B.C., which re-emerged May 2 after smouldering through the winter.Patry Creek is a so-called holdover fire, and wildfire officials in British Columbia have expressed concern that last year’s record fire season, along with continued drought conditions, will mean more such fires remain a threat.

When the conditions are right, fires burning deep underground can “slumber” undetected, simmering even under snow for possibly months after ignition. “Some of the fires that were burning during the 2023 season, which were significant in size ... continue to burn, but they continue to burn underground. So they start to smolder and you can actually have snow and precipitation fall on top of those fires and they’ll continue to exist underground.”“It’s certainly something that, as an agency, we have dealt with holdover fires for my entire career for 21 years,” said BC Wildfire Service director of operations Cliff Chapman.

In January, more than 100 wildfires were still listed as burning in B.C., many more than the typical few dozen holdovers year to year, according to BC Wildfire Service spokesman Forrest Tower. “It’s just how deep some of these fires burned and the size of them,” he said in January. “It takes a ton of manual labour to dig deep enough or to access some of these more remote fires.”Chapman said the Fort Nelson wildfire experience is likely something that the wildfire service will learn from in terms of anticipating the impact of future holdover fires.

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