Burning slash piles in the Beaufort Mountain Range northwest of Port Alberni caused concern Thursday night.
The slash piles could be seen once night fell, glowing in an uneven line a few kilometres west of where a forest fire burned for nearly two weeks earlier in the summer.
“We don’t have a report of a wildfire but we do know there is active burning in the area,” Coastal Fire Centre fire information officer Donna MacPherson said.
“They register the burn with us and then wait for the right conditions to go ahead.”
Logging companies or landowners don’t have to inform the CFC when they start their burn.
“Sometimes these registrations can be for a year or two,” MacPherson said.
The Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District does not issue burning permits within its jurisdiction, CAO Doug Holmes said.
“We understand that anyone lighting a Category 3 machine-piled slash pile (larger than two metres wide by three metres high) must first obtain a burn registration number from the ministry (Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development),” he said.
“They also have to monitor the venting index which has to be ‘good’ on the day the fire is lit and ‘good’ or ‘fair’ on the following day.”
A BC Wildfire map showing where OFTS registered burning locations have been issued can be found online. The map does not list which companies have been issued permits.
