As crews battle 450 wildfires across B.C., a video of a driver flicking what appears to be a cigarette butt out of their vehicle has prompted outrage.
The incident appears to have taken place in Abbotsford just west of the No. 3 road exit in the westbound lanes. As traffic moves at slow speed, the driver ahead is seen flicking a white object that appears to be a cigarette butt onto the median. The video was posted on Facebook Saturday and has since gathered more than 480,000 views.
Lisa Cardarelli, who posted the video, wrote online that she was taking video because she had watched the driver dispose of other cigarette butts in a similar manner as traffic crawled along.
She wrote on the post that she hopes the video increases “awareness of how a careless act can cause so much devastation.”
“Any fires that are human-caused are totally preventable,” B.C. Wildfire Service information officer Kyla Fraser told Black Press. “When people report in cigarette butts being tossed, if a fire does happen we can take that into consideration,” she said Tuesday.
Because no fire started, there is no open investigation the part of the wildfire service.
But Const. Mike Halskov, with the RCMP Traffic Services division, says police can look into such instances that are witnessed. He said fines can be handed out, although he wasn’t immediately able to say if there was any investigation into the instance in question.
Cardarelli commented on Facebook that multiple people had notified the police about the video since she had posted it.
Those who see someone in violation of open fire bans, or flicking cigarettes, can report it to *55555.
WATCH video (warning: graphic language)
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