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Extreme caution urged for smokers during dry spell

Fire Hazard
fire
A carelessly tossed cigarette butt can cause extensive fire damage. Smokers are urged to be extremely cautious.

Fire departments on the Coast are urging extreme caution this week as the dry, hot weather has created ideal conditions for fires to ignite from discarded cigarette butts.

“Normally cigarette drops don’t cause much of a problem. They’re a litter concern, of course, but as far as the fire service goes, it’s only at this time of year when we get these extremely dry conditions that a cigarette drop will actually start a fire, and we’re seeing it more and more often,” said Sechelt fire chief Bill Higgs.

Roberts Creek assistant fire chief Patrick Higgins said a recent cigarette-related call out to the Wilson Creek Shell, during a time when fire crews were already responding to a tugboat fire in Trail Bay, caused trouble for firefighters.  

“It caused a lot of concern because the call-out was for dark smoke coming from the vents of the underground fuel storage tank,” Higgins said, noting three fire departments responded with crew pulled from the tugboat fire.

Once firefighters arrived on scene they found a smouldering cigarette butt had ignited the bark mulch nearby and the fire was easily extinguished. The call-out could have easily been avoided through proper cigarette butt disposal, Higgins said.

Smokers should be either discarding their cigarette butts in appropriate containers, he said, or dousing butts with water “if they have to throw them on the ground” while the hot weather persists.

Throwing cigarette butts out of car windows can be especially problematic and can easily start forest fires, as was the case last August in Roberts Creek.

“The guy who was responsible for that wildfire last year felt horrible, of course,” Higgins said. “It was just a little flick of the cigarette butt, and he left, and then a 30 to 40 foot wide wildfire started up there above Henderson and Park Avenue in Roberts Creek.”

Crews were able to locate and knock down that fire before it became a bigger problem, but Higgins said firefighters might not be as lucky next time.

For that reason fire departments are asking smokers to be especially vigilant during the hot, dry weather and asking businesses to provide cigarette disposal containers for their customers.

“People who have stores and public buildings where they know people smoke outside, they need to provide a place for people to put their cigarettes, a can of sand or something, because what we find is there are not a lot of spots and people don’t want to put their cigarette butt on the sidewalk, so they’ll throw it in what they think is dirt and it’s usually not dirt. It’s usually organic material and then we’ve got a fire on our hands,” Higgs said.