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It's a typical summer in BC for campers. Book time off work, reserve your campsite and make sure your propane tank is filled for your lakeside evenings.

You arrive to check-in and — surprise — the campground staff ask if you need wood for the fire pit.

BC is in the latter half of summer and nearly the entire province still has no campfire ban, which is catching campers off-guard, according to staff at some Thompson-Okanagan campgrounds.

"People are shocked when I ask if they want firewood," Tracy Robinson said, who is the manager at Echo Lake Resort near Lumby.

BC Wildfire Service has three levels of fire bans it can put on regions throughout the province, often saving campfires for last, which has happened in six of the last ten years.

In 2022, a prohibition on Aug. 4 marked one of the latest summertime campfire bans for the Kamloops Fire Centre. Just a year later, a June 7 campfire ban was one of the earliest the province had seen in years.

This year, some municipalities have implemented their own campfire bans despite the lack of such prohibitions by BC Wildfire Service. Penticton, for example, issued a ban last week amid increased fire risk in the South Okanagan. Others, like Kamloops, maintain a year-round campfire ban.

While the prohibitions may not happen every year, guests at Southern Interior campgrounds certainly expect it.

"I know people prefer to have a wood-burning fire, but I find when I tell people there's no fire ban, they say, 'It's OK, we have our propane pit,'" Pinegrove Campground owner Cindy Croken said.

Her campground is in McLure, less than 50 kilometres from Kamloops along the North Thompson River, and often attracts tourists from overseas on their way to Jasper. Foreign tourists and BC campers alike tend to come prepared with propane fire pits, not expecting to sit around a wood-burning fire.

"People are just really thinking about it more," she said. "There's a lot more responsible people out there nowadays. Even if they know they can start a fire, they won't because they don't want to feel like they're going to start a wildfire."

Robinson said guests at her campground near Lumby also tend to bring propane, but the lack of a fire ban is a welcome reprieve from some of the recent wildfire smoke-filled summers Thompson-Okanagan residents have grown more accustomed to. Instead, campers can get their wood smoke from fire pits they've lit themselves.

"Who doesn't want to smell like a campfire?" Robinson said.

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