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Three roadside fires in a single day have the Vancouver fire department warning smokers that a fire risk exists here just as much as in the Interior.

“Grass fires on the side of the roadways are still happening and it just is amazing — in the province of B.C. right now, with all the education out there — that people continually drive down the street with their cigarette hanging out the window,” said Joe Foster, an assistant chief with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services.

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Foster said hot ash from a cigarette, let alone a tossed burning butt, is enough to start a fire in dried-out roadside grass.

On Friday, there were at least three small roadside fires in the city.

Foster said there is no point wasting investigative resources on small grass fires sparked by ashes or cigarette butts tossed from passing cars.

“It’s really difficult to super sleuth those ones because we don’t put the resources into them as a fire investigations team to find that cigarette butt at the side of the road — but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that fire doesn’t start spontaneously by itself in the middle of a grass area,” said Foster.