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By Liam Verster
Fire Bans

Category 2 and 3 Fire Bans taking effect Thursday

May 5, 2026 | 12:26 PM

The season’s first fire bans for the Okanagan and surrounding area come into effect this week.

The B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) will put a ban on Category 2 and 3 open burning within the Kamloops Fire Centre starting at noon Thursday, May 7.

The bans for the area that include Vernon, Kelowna and the Okanagan and Shuswap regions cover pile burning, burning stubble or grass, and windrows.

Prohibitions will also be put on the use of burn barrels and cages, air curtain burners, carbonizers, binary exploding targets, fireworks, and controlled air incinerators.

The bans apply to all area outside municipal boundaries as well as in parks, conservancies and recreation areas; recreation sites and trails, and interpretive forest sites; ecological reserves; wildfire management areas; and private managed forest land.

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Anyone found in breach of the fire bans could be issued a ticket for $1,150; required to pay an administrative penalty of up to $10,000 or, if convicted, fined up to $100,000 and/or sentenced to a year in jail. If a contravention causes or contributes to a wildfire the responsible person may also be ordered to pay all firefighting and other associated costs.

Under the BCWS order people will still be able to have campfires and use gas, propane or briquette fuelled cooking stoves.

by Liam Verster
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