Are prescribed burns the answer to B.C.’s wildfire issues?

A new report from the Forests Ministry will have a lot of NowMedia readers saying “I told you so.”

It calls for British Columbia to have more prescribed burns throughout the fall, winter and spring months as a way to prevent out of control wildfires in the summer.

More controlled burns is something that many NowMedia readers have called for while following our coverage of major wildfires across B.C. over the last couple of summers.

Now, plans to allow expanded use of prescribed burns is part of a government action plan that made 108 recommendations to overhaul disaster response practices after devastating fires and floods in 2017.

Former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister George Abbot says he would have rejected prescribed burns of forest lands because of the health hazard caused by smoke.

Now, he sees them as a way to protect communities from fires.

Over the last two summers, thousands of people have been evacuated from their communities due to unprecedented wildfires and some communities were even lost to the blazes.

The provincial government has declared lengthy state of emergencies in each of the last two forest fire seasons.

With files from the Canadian Press.