The summer of 2017 has officially become the worst fire season in B.C.'s history with an estimated 1.27 million hectares burned across the province.

Photo Credit: KelownaNow.

(Not sure how big a hectare is? A hectare is a 100 meters by 100 meters. For instance, the Apple Bowl in Kelowna is a 400 m running track and the grassy area inside is 1.12 hectares.)

Photo Credit: Source – Metric views.

Right now hundreds of firefighters and dozens of aircraft are working to contain the Plateau wildfire, which is now the largest wildfire ever recorded in British Columbia's history.

The Plateau wildfire reached this mark earlier in the week when nineteen wildfires merged in the province's Interior creating a single blaze that's now estimated to be more than 492,000 hectares in size.

The massive blaze, which stretches 130 kilometres from one end to the other, is located on the Chilcotin Plateau, 60 kilometres west of Quesnel and 60 kilometres northwest of Williams Lake.

Ft. McMurray's gigantic wildfire dubbed "The Beast", which destroyed approximately 2,400 homes and buildings in the city, was estimated at 600,000 hectares.

For reference, a 600,000 hectare wildfire would cover from West Vancouver to Bellingham, Washington State. 

The Okanagan Mountain Park Fire was recorded at 25,600 hectares.

“We always say we want to hit them hard and hit them fast, using a lot of air support up front,” said Fire Information Officer, Navi Saini.

“When it's super windy, super hot, dry with really volatile conditions, those fires can spread really quickly and become quite large in size. Those ones are our expanded attack fires, for those ones the main difference is we use planned ignitions.”

Photo Credit: Rodney Reid Skill Tech Builders.

When the decision is made to conduct burning operations against a wildfire, the fire is usually beyond the initial attack stage. Common ignitions used are burning out, burning off or back firing. The goal of these ignitions is always to remove the majority of available fuels ahead of the fire, so there's nothing left to burn.

While using water and fire retardant to fight the fire are still tools, the circumstances that come with a massive wildfire make using them difficult. 

Photo Credit: Rodney Reid Skill Tech Builders.

“Usually when fires are burning as aggressively as they have been it's smoke that is the biggest factor. When we have such smoky conditions it becomes unsafe to fly and makes it very difficult to hit the fire with water or retardant,” said Saini.  

“Another thing is we're limited by daylight with aircrafts, whereas burn-off operations and planned ignitions we can do throughout the night as well. The night is when the conditions are usually cooler and more favourable.”

Once a fire reaches a certain magnitude the only option is to control the blaze until it eventually burns out. This process can take months with the Ft. McMurray wildfire burning well into winter. 

"We always say until the snow flies, we have seen cases where the fire does burn throughout winter," said Saini. "It's not challenging any barriers or pre-existing perimeters, but it is smoldering underground and a few hot spots will show up."

The Plateau currently has well over 400 firefighters battling the blaze alongside 30 aircraft and 75 pieces of heavy equipment. It currently sits at under 30% containment and there is no timeline for when the fire may be out.