British Columbia Seasonal Wildfire Outlook
British Columbia's seasonal outlook is useful for understanding how longer-range fire-weather conditions may evolve before individual incidents appear. It complements BC Wildfire Service incident data, FireRadar's daily fire-danger map, smoke forecasts, and local community pages.
Updated monthly on the first business day after the 6th from April through September.
FireRadar does not invent an interim seasonal value between official CWFIS updates. Check the source map for the currently published forecast month and model products.
How to read the seasonal forecast
Forecast Severity Rating
A longer-range estimate of potential seasonal fire-weather severity. Similar values can still produce different real-world fire outcomes.
Severity Anomaly
Shows how forecast severity compares with what is typical for that location and time of year.
Probabilistic Forecast
Communicates confidence and agreement across the forecast ensemble rather than pretending one deterministic outcome is certain.
95th-percentile fire-weather days
Highlights periods when forecast Fire Weather Index may be unusually high relative to the local climate. It does not capture every day on which extreme fire behaviour could occur.
What the outlook means for British Columbia
B.C. combines coastal, Interior, mountain, plateau, boreal, and grassland fire environments. A province-wide seasonal signal can hide large regional differences, while locally strong winds and terrain effects are not fully represented by long-range models. Do not translate an above-normal outlook into a claim that a specific community or property will burn.