Historical Wildfire Perimeters for British Columbia, Updated Annually

Wildfire perimeters for all fire seasons before the current year in British Columbia. The Government of British Columbia supplies the data through various sources, with the previous year's perimeters merged into the dataset each April 1. The dataset was last updated on April 22, 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze historical wildfire spread and frequency based on the fire perimeter data.
• Model wildfire risk and landscape changes over time using the geospatial perimeter information.
• Validate or calibrate remote sensing or simulation models against the official historical fire records.

Strengths

• Data is maintained and updated annually by the Government of British Columbia, providing an official record.
• Covers all fire seasons before the current year, offering a long-term historical perspective.
• Available in multiple geospatial formats (WMS, KML, KMZ) for integration with various GIS tools.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality, column definitions, and spatial accuracy require manual inspection after download.
• Row count and specific temporal range are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for quantitative studies.
• The description notes the data is 'not to be used for legal purposes' and may reflect source-specific biases inherent to the aggregation method.

Provenance

Source

Government of British Columbia

Collection Method

Supplied through various sources and aggregated.

Time Range

All fire seasons before the current year.

Freshness

Updated annually, with the previous year's data merged on April 1. Last metadata update was 2026-04 22.

Geography

British Columbia, Canada