 Okay, thank you and good afternoon everyone. I'm Katrina Conroy, the Minister of Forests and I want to recognize the indigenous nations on whose traditional territory we're gathered today and I'm joining you from the territory of the Likwata people, the Uiwakai, the Uiwakum, and the Kiwaka First Nations and I'm coming from the first forestry office up here in Campbell River. I'm joined today by Neil McLaughlin, the Superintendent of Predictive Services for BC Wildfire Service, who will provide us with a review of some of the trends we saw this season and a wildfire outlook for September. And we also have Pater Brock, Executive Director of the Regional Operations of Emergency Management BC, who is on hand to answer any questions afterwards. So as of August 31st, there were 182 active wildfires burning across the province. There is currently only one wildfire note, that's the Fat Dog Creek Fire in Manning Park and within the Coastal Fire Centre. Since April 1st, there have been 1,355 wildfires across BC. This season that has resulted in 43,000 hectares of area burned. This is lower than the 20-year average for British Columbia this time of year, which is 1,515 fires and notably about 259,000 hectares burned. Of these 1,355 wildfires, 93% of them are out, under control, or being held. By comparison to last year, over the same time period, we had responded to 1,562 fires with 865,298 hectares burned, reflecting last year's extreme conditions. With a slower start to the wildfire season in BC, we were able to support our neighbours in Yukon in July with more than 250 crew members and support personnel. Facing similar conditions to the Yukon, the northwest corner of the province kicked off the core fire season in BC with numerous lightning-caused wildfires. And I want to say thank you to our dedicated teams in the northern half of the province for your work protecting important travel corridors and keeping residents in northern remote communities informed and safe. Earlier this summer, the BC Wildfire Service was called in to support the Nahoman Creek wildfire approximately 1.7 kilometres northwest of Lytton. For everyone involved, from community members to first responders, the events of last year were fresh in our minds. And once again, I want to acknowledge the resilience of the village of Lytton, Lytton First Nations and local firefighters and wildfire crews. I was tremendously proud of the teamwork between the BC Wildfire Service, the Lytton First Nation, BC Parks, and First Nations Emergency Service Society on this incident. Working together, homes were defended and cultural values were protected within the Stein Valley into Lakopin Heritage Park, while the remainder of the park was permitted to burn as part of the park's fire management plan to maintain a healthy forest and a diversity of plant and animal life. Partnerships have been a critical part of the success of the wildfire response this season. While visiting wildfire camps in the southeast, I was updated about the Rancher Liaison Program where local ranchers are offering advice on the environment, site specific conditions and values at risk. The importance of local knowledge and expertise is also being harnessed through a new Indigenous initial attack model and the inclusion of First Nations Liaisons on wildfire incidents. An integrated model to protect structures and improve defence has strengthened relationships with local fire departments province-wide, increasing efficiency and coordinated action between agencies. These partnerships are critical to the threat of climate change coupled with an expanding wildland urban interface will bring more wildfires to the doorsteps of communities. It has also been exciting to witness the advancement of our firefighting techniques through various innovation trials and research partnerships. This includes portable cellular towers for better communication and data transfer in remote locations, the expanded use of drone technology for aerial ignitions and research to improve predictive capabilities. I want to acknowledge and thank all BC Wildfire staff, our contractors, First Nations and industry partners for your service this season. Despite there being double the number of lightning-caused wildfires this August as compared to the 20-year average, you have maintained an incredible success rate on the initial attack. While there is much to be proud of this season so far, we need to address the issues of climate change. And because of that we have made one of the largest investments in the history of BC Wildfire service to transform the organization into a year-round operation. And this allows us to put more emphasis on all four pillars of emergency management, prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. As we head into September and the upcoming Labor Day long weekend, we anticipate warm and dry weather to continue well into the month, which means continued vigilance. And Neil's going to share more about this momentarily. But I want to stress the importance of being prepared, planning ahead and staying informed. 75% of fires that have been caused this year have been caused by lightning. BC is experiencing one of the lowest human-caused wildfire seasons since 1950. So we're asking all British Columbians to continue the great work that you have all been doing. I'd now like to introduce Neil McLaughlin, Superintendent of Predictive Services for the BC Wildfire Service, to tell more about some of the trends that we saw this summer and what we expect in September. Neil. Thank you, Mr. Conray. I will just bring up my slide deck here. Okay, just to check that we've got the slides on screen. Yeah, we do. Thank you. Okay, so I like this photo, you know, September 1. For those that have children heading back to school, I also think about our seasonal firefighters and a lot of our staff who are seasonal and are also heading back to post-secondary education. So I thought I'd start the presentation with this picture reminiscent of changes in our resources as we head into September. We're going to start the outlook by looking at the trends that we saw through August. I'll speak about some of the current conditions that we're seeing right now as we head into the fall, and then we'll spend a little bit of time on the outlook for September. So looking back through August, these are anomaly maps from our partners at Environment Climate Change Canada. On the left, you're seeing a temperature anomaly map, and on the right is a precipitation anomaly map. And what we saw was that temperatures were indeed above normal everywhere from one degree above normal on the east side of the province, up to three degrees above normal on the western portion of the province. In terms of precipitation, we were lower than normal. We were only seeing about 25% of normal precipitation in the south, and 25 to 50% of normal precipitation in the northeast corner of the province. There is a band on that right hand figure where you see colours of white and green kind of through the centre. Those areas were more normal, so this doesn't apply to everywhere in the province, but certainly there were some dry spots. Lightning was another big story for August, as Minister Conroy mentioned earlier. We saw this repeating pattern of high pressure ridges resulting in stable hot dry weather, and those were followed by upper lows bringing thunderstorms and new lightning starts. And this graphic that you're seeing is just showing the storyline of lightning strikes through the month of August, and you can definitely see that repeating pattern, but also the magnitude of it. There was over 98,000 lightning strokes recorded during the month of August throughout the province, and of those, 85% of the 889 new fire starts were indeed lightning cause, so a very busy month, and mainly due to lightning cause fires. This graphic here is tracking the number of new fires by week through our fire season, and it's kind of the storyline for 2022. The dark black line is the weekly fire numbers for 2022, and in the background you're seeing different shaded colors. That's showing the range of variability that we've experienced over the past 20 years. There's one more line on this graph which is a dotted line, and that's the year 2020, and it was serving as a good benchmark for comparing against this year in terms of what we could expect. The general pattern and the overall number of fires is still tracking very well against the year 2020, however, we did experience a very pronounced spike in fire activity through the later half of August, which you can see on this graph. In fact, in the later weeks of August, we actually exceeded the maximum number of fires per week that we would have otherwise seen in the past 20 years, so a very active week. However, as we move into September, we are seeing that trend starting to reduce. We're still above normal, but it's coming down, so as we move into September, I do see a continuing decreasing trend in terms of number of fires per week. In terms of area burned, again, we are below average, sitting at about 17% of the 20-year average for this time of year. Now, this can be attributed to a number of things, you know, might appear to be conflicting information that we've had these hot, dry conditions, that why is our area burned so low? And so some of those factors which contribute to less area burn this year are, one, we started the season quite late. We had above normal, over winter precipitation, cooler spring temperatures, late snowmelt at upper elevations, and an overall late start to the fire season. In July and August, we did see this repeating pattern of high pressure ridges followed by upper lows bringing new lightning starts, but in general, the weather pattern produced light winds and stable atmospheres, and those play also a big role in limiting fire growth. Finally, in late August, we did see precipitation in Southeast BC, which limited the growth of active fires, and it also contributed to our initial attack success rates. So let's look at the current conditions. On the left, we're seeing an anomaly map for our buildup index. Now, the buildup index is a measure of fuel availability. Think of it like starting your campfire. If you were throwing wet wood on your campfire or trying to start a campfire with wet wood, you would be a low buildup index value versus very dry wood, and an easy to start campfire would be higher BUI values. And so on the left-hand side, this is just comparing against the past, we are seeing anomalous values in the southwest corner of the province as well as the northeast corner of the province for this time of year. Looking at the absolute values where we're at and kind of forecasting where we'll be by the 3rd of September on the right-hand side, again, this lines up well with the anomalies. The message here is that without rain, these buildup indices will continue to climb in these parts of the province. And so there still is hazard in the southwest corner and northeast corner of the province. This is also aligning with where we're seeing some of our current fire activity that Minister Conroy mentioned earlier. Just a quick look at recent fire activity. We were just looking at where these buildup index values are higher. This aligns well with where some of our larger fire sizes and out-of-control fires are showing up on these two maps. The map on the left is showing current fire status. And so if we just kind of pick out the red symbols which are out-of-control fires, again, a good concentration of them are in the lower southwest corner or up towards the northeast corner of the province. On the right-hand side is fire size. And again, some of the larger fire sizes are also showing up in these two locations. So what do we have in store for September? Right now our Pacific Ocean temperatures remain 3 to 5 degrees Celsius above normal. And that's going to translate into warmer than normal temperatures through September for most of the province. The probability for those above normal temperatures is highest over Vancouver Island and southern DC. But we still have fairly high probabilities right up to the northern border. Stronger winds are not referenced in this figure from our partners at Environment Climate Change Canada, but they are concerned as we start to transition into more fall weather patterns. And again, as I mentioned earlier, that's one of the key things that has been keeping our fire sizes smaller this year is that winds have been generally light and stable. But as we transition into more fall patterns, there is the possibility for stronger winds. So that's something that we'll want to watch out for. So I'd like to summarize what I've shared with you today. Again, there was a spike in fires in the later half of August that was above normal for this time of year, but it is showing a decreasing trend that is expected to continue into September. Our seasonal firefighters contributed to an incredible success rate on an initial attack, and we thank them as they head back to school. Elevated fire danger and fire activity is still a concern in the southwest and the northeast corners of the province, especially if these areas don't receive precipitation. Above average temperatures are likely across DC through September and return to normal temperatures is probably not likely until October. Stronger winds is what we're really concerned about as well as grass curing. So as temperatures gradually come down in the later part of September, that's going to cure some of our grasses and make them more available for burning. So a couple of fall hazards to pay attention to. Finally, although 2022 has been below average for area burned, I just want to remind everyone that any size fire can threaten public safety and impact human values as we head into September. So again, huge thank you to members of the public for your vigilance through the fire season and keeping the number of human cause fires low. Let's keep the great work up through the month of September. With that, I'll return it back to Minister. Thank you. Thanks very much, Neil. And I too want to remind people that we still need to be vigilant. It's everybody saying, OK, it's a Labor Day weekend. Summer's over. Well, it's not over as obviously from Neil's report there. It's still going to be quite hot. And so I'd remind people, you know, drink lots of water, wear sunscreen and be particularly vigilant in the when you're out in the back country and enjoying the recreation that most of us are going to enjoy over the Labor Day weekend. And again, I too want to thank all the students. I traveled across the province and met many of you of our post-secondary students who are heading back to school soon. And I want to thank you all for the work that you've done. I know it's been an interesting summer, but it's hard work and we really are very grateful for the work you do. And with that, I want to thank everyone for joining us. And I'd like to invite questions from the media for both myself, Peter from EMBC, as well as Neil. And with that, I'll turn it back to Tara. Thank you, Minister. A reminder to media on the line for the opportunity to ask a question, please press star one to enter the queue. Again, that's star one to enter the queue. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. I'll pause for a second here to see if we have any questions come up. Okay. Seeing none, that concludes our availability. Thank you very much. Thank you.