Rumours spread like wildfire — and rumours about wildfire are no exception. In Canada’s westernmost province, the BC Wildfire Service is taking to its social media channels to tackle misinformation with an unlikely tool: kindness.
Take the term “human caused.” Wildfire agencies use it to describe all wildfires that aren’t started by lightning, but many people have incorrectly conflated that with arson and the idea has taken hold. In the comments threads under BC Wildfire Service social media posts are often dozens of examples of folks weighing in with incorrect information.
This year, you’ll see the government account responding to those comments with a playful, gentle tone and a wealth of facts.
Jean Strong, a digital communications officer with the government agency, says her team is trying a new tack this year, after successfully experimenting with the approach during the 2024 wildfire season.
“We’ve intentionally shifted how we operate across our social media channels,” Strong tells The Narwhal in a phone interview. “This year, we’ve been able to lean into it a lot more and I think it’s been super well received by the public.”
The 2025 wildfire season is already underway in B.C., with multiple fires burning in the drought-stricken northeast, and the wildfire service has already been busy on social media. Strong says the shift (which includes liberal use of the smiling face emoji, she chuckles) is in large part a response to questions she sees on platforms like Facebook, where users often take a sardonic tone.
“Assuming the intent behind those questions is always genuine and real, and being empathetic and kind to that, serves us well,” she says. “Even if they’re not genuine, if it’s sarcastic or facetious or whatever, then we’re still being kind and helpful and it’s information that other people, who may have genuinely been wondering about the same thing, can also consume and read those comments.”
The end goal is to increase public understanding about both the basics and complexities of wildfire science and response, she says. As wildfires burn bigger, more intensely and more frequently, people are increasingly thinking and talking about what it means for their communities. While talking more openly about wildfires is an important part of adaptation to a rapidly changing climate, it also opens the door to the proliferation of misinformation — and the spread of fear. It’s part of a trend of misinformation — false information spread inadvertently — and disinformation, which is spread with an intention to deceive. Both are all too prevalent online, and have governments and journalists alike grappling with how to respond.
“People are anxious, people are scared,” Strong says. “We’ve seen some of the worst wildfire seasons that we’ve ever had in B.C.’s recorded history in the past several years, and it’s scary.”
BC Wildfire Service uses compassion to dispel fear and anxiety
Strong says the new approach is something of a passion project. Since she started working for the BC Wildfire Service in 2021, she’s helped set up an in-house video team and supported a documentary film crew as they shot and produced a wildfire series recently released on the Knowledge Network. Incorporating video is helping the agency reach younger audiences on platforms like Instagram, she says.
Taking a more playful or lighthearted approach to engaging with the public on social media hasn’t always been an easy sell internally, Strong says. But it’s been gaining traction with her colleagues as they start to see positive results.
“Research is showing that people who maybe feel more skeptical of communications from the government or feel more skeptical of scientific topics engage far better with content that is not as authoritative and top-down,” she says, explaining how humour in particular is proving effective at bridging those barriers. “It’s more approachable, it’s compassionate.”
She says finding new ways to successfully engage with people — especially those who are wary of government agencies and prone to spreading misinformation online — is imperative as wildfires increasingly become part of life for British Columbians.
“One of the things we’ve really found is the more engaging, factual, trustworthy information we share, the more people will share that themselves, in our comment section and elsewhere, to correct other people who may be on the wrong track,” she explains. “And that’s hugely rewarding.”
She says the focus so far this year has been on educating the public about common language and terminology to help dispel fear and anxiety.
“We shared a post on what it means when we classify fires ‘out of control,’ ” she says. “Because if you said anything else is out of control, you’d be like, ‘It’s crazy, it’s all over the place.’ And that’s not what we mean when we say that. It’s just a standard technical term that we use. It doesn’t mean that it’s this raging inferno.”
Out of control means a wildfire is continuing to increase in size or is anticipated to spread beyond the control line, according to a provincial government wildfire glossary. It does not necessarily mean the wildfire is dangerous or a threat. It refers to conditions, including weather forecasts and fire behaviour, that are expected to keep the fire growing.
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Strong notes the lighter approach isn’t always going to be the right fit. After all, the wildfire service is often responding to emergencies.
“We’re certainly not going to make a meme about serious topics — and we do deal with a lot of serious things in our work — but we’re leaning into that lightness and humour and being more genuine and human when it’s appropriate for us to.”
While the end goal of engagement — whether serious or lighthearted — is education, Strong reminds people that social media does not exist in a vacuum. She says the firefighters on the frontlines of wildfires every year often end their days on their phones.
“They go back and they’re in their tent and they’re on social media because they’re human,” she says. “They see the comments and the engagement with wildfire content.”
“Negativity can have a really big impact on them,” she continues. “But on the opposite side of the coin, so can positivity.”
She says people who want to provide support or show appreciation for the hard work firefighters are doing should remember that when engaging with the wildfire service online — and chime in to drown out the noise with kindness.
