BURST
A B.C. camper is crying foul after B.C. Parks refused to refund his Lightning Lake campground reservation fees in Manning Park, even though intense wildfire smoke made it impossible for him to camp.
B.C. Parks cited data from a provincial air-quality monitoring station located nearly 70 km away near Hope, where the air was significantly clearer, as its reason for refusing the refund.
Dmitri Berlin had reserved two nights at the Manning Park campground, and arrived on July 29 at around 4 p.m.
“I was aware there were wildfires around that area, but I couldn’t see how bad it was until I got there.
“It was impossible to breathe. It was unhealthy.”
He decided to camp elsewhere.
There are currently four wildfires in and around Manning Park, which began after a lightning storm hit the area on July 17. On July 31, shortly after Berlin’s scheduled camping reservations, air quality around Manning Park was so poor the well-known Big Dog bike race, scheduled to run from Aug. 7-9 was cancelled by organizers citing smoke, safety and air-quality concerns.
According to the B.C. Parks website, refunds for campers can be granted for a variety of reasons, including poor air quality. The policy set out on the website states that refunds are granted when air-quality levels measure 7 or higher on the B.C. Air Quality Health Index, or 60 or higher on the Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) Station.
Berlin was told that air-quality measurements taken at the station closest to the park on the date of cancellation did not meet that criteria.
“There is no station nearby. The link that they provide shows the nearest station is in Hope,” said a frustrated Berlin. “It doesn’t make sense because the station located is too far away to reasonably judge the air quality in Manning Park.”
He asked them to reconsider, but was refused a second time. “They said my case is now closed,” he said.
“I understand they don’t have stations at every point in every park, and it’s not reasonable to ask for that, but I believe there are other ways to judge the air quality,” said Berlin. “There must be a way to do this properly so people can actually have the right information at the right time.”
On Tuesday, the day B.C. Parks sent its final email turning down Berlin’s appeal, the weather network website’s smoke map showed Manning Park’s particulate air quality PM2.5 measured 95 micrograms per cubic metre (“high and unhealthy”), while Hope, where the monitoring station B.C. Parks relies on for guest refunds, registered no smoke at all.
According to health experts, wildfire smoke is associated with a number of serious health outcomes, including respiratory illnesses, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The province of B.C. has a network of approximately 150 highly precise air-quality sensors that use the Federal Equivalent Method to assess air quality and track hazards such as wildfire smoke, but due to their high cost, some communities are left underserved, according to Dr. Sarah Henderson, an associate professor at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health and an expert on the health impacts of wildfire smoke.
Widely available, low-cost sensors and crowdsourced data is helping to fill gaps around the globe.
“We have a fairly robust network of low-cost sensors in British Columbia,” said Henderson. “The more of these sensors we have in the province, the better able we are to truly understand the impacts of these wildfire smoke events.”
Data from low-cost sensors in B.C. and across Canada, including the popular crowdsourced Purple Air , are shown on Environment and Climate Change Canada’s AirQualityMaps.ca .
“These data are reliable enough for people to use in their decision making about the health impacts of wildfire smoke,” said Henderson. “I would encourage B.C. Parks to consider these data when they are thinking about whether or not individuals should be refunded by campsites in very smoky regions.”
Fees for camping in the park are about $35 per night, plus taxes and fees, which bumped Berlin’s bill up to over $100 for two nights.
“There are ways to make this right,” said Berlin.
Questions sent to the B.C. ministry of environment and parks were not returned by deadline on Tuesday.