Area burned in BC by wildfires over each decade, 1924-2023

In the chart below, each bar represents 10 years of data. This method of presenting the numbers averages out the ups and downs and helps to show if any trend is at work over the decades. There doesn’t appear to be a trend between 1924 and 2013. The recent upward trend is more like an explosion. Many scientists have attributed this abrupt increase in the area being burned to climate change. There has also been massive industrialization of BC’s forests since 2010, both from logging and oil and gas development in BC’s northeast corner and logging. In 2023, 63 percent of all area burned in BC occurred east of the Rocky Mountains.