Victoria Allocates $65M to Enhance Wildfire Defense Buffers Across Interior Municipalities

VICTORIA, BC — British Columbia Premier David Eby announced a $65 million provincial funding deployment Wednesday to fortify community wildfire defense perimeters and expand night-vision aerial firefighting operations across central and northern B.C.

Funding Allocations and Defense Buffers

The funding, disbursed through the Community Resiliency Investment program, provides direct municipal grants to 34 regional districts and First Nations communities in the Cariboo, Thompson-Okanagan, and Peace River regions. Projects include clearing hazardous deadfall along wildland-urban interfaces, creating 300-metre forest fuel breaks around residential developments, and installing high-capacity perimeter sprinkler networks.

A dedicated $18 million envelope will expand the BC Wildfire Service's night-vision helicopter operations, enabling continuous aerial water drops during cooler nighttime hours when fire activity typically moderates.

Regional Protection and First Nations Partnerships

Premier Eby emphasized that with severe drought conditions persisting across interior watersheds, proactive community hardening is vital to protecting lives, critical highway corridors, and municipal power grids.

First Nations leadership commended the program's co-management structure, which integrates traditional cultural burning practices with modern satellite fire detection algorithms.

Operational Deployment Timeline

Crews will begin mechanized forest thinning and fuel mitigation works in September as summer fire season activity transitions into fall forest management operations.