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(ASHLEY LEGASSIC - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)

Around this time each year, at least a couple of wildfires start popping up around the Southern Interior, and many of them are human-caused.

But what exactly does 'human-caused' mean? It's not as obvious as you might think, B.C. Wildfire information officer Jody Lucius says.

"It does vary quite substantially," she says. "We would consider a human-caused fire to be anything that’s not caused by lightning."

When looking into what caused a fire, officials will look at the obvious things, Lucius says, which can include ATVs, cigarette butts, and campfires. But they'll also consider industrial activities, railways, and sparks from a machine or vehicle like a chainsaw or a car dragging a piece of metal.

"It can really be a really wide variety of things," Lucius says. "I think often times too, one of the important things to note is it isn’t always done with intention.”

Lucius says in many cases these fires are started accidentally, for instance if a piece of your vehicle is being dragged along the road.

All wildfires in the province are investigated in the province by B.C. Wildfire for fire origin and cause. According to the service's website, the origin and cause of human-caused fires can involve extensive and complex investigation.

Hundreds of pages of documents are gathered for these reports, including photographs from the scene, field notes from firefighters, email exchanges between officials, and details of investigative techniques.

Officials will conduct a grid search of the fire-affected area, sifting through debris of the ignition area to determine what could have caused it, as they did with the Monte Lake fire last year.

In that case officials originally followed a tip that the fire may have been started by a lit cigarette, but after a ground search determined the suspected cause was likely from a vehicle, either from metal friction or exhaust particles.

According to the B.C. Wildfire website, an average of 40 per cent of wildfires in the province each year are caused by human activities that can create a spark or a heat source sufficient enough to spark a fire.

Human-caused fires are preventable.

For more information on wildfire activity and prevention in the province, go here.

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