Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke: A BC Strata Council's Plan

Heat domes and smoke seasons have become a recurring summer feature in British Columbia, and strata councils are often the only body positioned to act for a whole building. The Strata Property Act does not contain a "heat and smoke" chapter, so what follows is a mix of real statutory duties, powers the council already has, and decisions that depend entirely on your own registered bylaws and strata plan.

Start with what the corporation already owes

The corporation's core duty is to repair and maintain common property and common assets (Part 5 of the Act). In a heat or smoke event, that duty is doing a lot of quiet work:

• Mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems that pull outside air into corridors and suites — including whether filters are the right rating for your equipment and are actually being changed.
• Operable windows, screens, door closers and weatherstripping on common property.
• Elevators and lobby systems, which matter most when residents with mobility or health needs cannot use stairs in 35°C hallways.

Fire and life-safety systems sit alongside this. Each system — alarms, sprinklers, extinguishers, emergency lighting, standpipes — must be inspected, tested and maintained at the interval the BC Fire Code sets for that system, which is not a single "annual building inspection." Our guide to fire and life-safety inspections explains how those intervals differ, and your maintenance planning and work order process is where filter changes and ventilation servicing should live rather than in someone's inbox.

Building the plan before smoke season

A workable strata heat plan is short and specific:

• Identify a cool or cleaner-air common space if the building has one — an amenity room, lobby or meeting room — and note its hours, capacity and who holds the key.
• Decide in advance how portable filtration or fans are deployed, including where they are stored and who sets them up.
• Confirm how you will reach residents quickly, and keep that contact information handled consistently with your privacy obligations.
• Flag residents who may need checking on, only where they have asked to be on such a list. Requests tied to a disability or medical condition may raise accommodation duties — see accessibility and the duty to accommodate.
• Write down who can call a meeting fast. Under the Standard Bylaws, any council member may call a council meeting on one week's notice, and a meeting may be held on shorter notice in an emergency situation where council members consent in advance or are unavailable after reasonable attempts to contact them (Standard Bylaw 14). Council meetings may be held by electronic means at the council's option, and members attending that way are deemed present in person (Standard Bylaw 17).

Questions councils actually ask

Does the strata corporation have to provide air conditioning?
Nothing in the Act requires a strata corporation to air condition a building. Whether it must maintain existing cooling equipment depends on whether that equipment is common property, a common asset, or part of a strata lot under your strata plan — and on anything your bylaws say about it.

Can an owner install a window air conditioner or heat pump?
That depends on what is being altered and on your registered bylaws. The Standard Bylaws require an owner to get the strata corporation's written approval before altering common property, limited common property or common assets, and before altering a strata lot in listed ways including the structure or exterior of a building, exterior doors and windows, and things attached to the exterior (Schedule of Standard Bylaws). That approval is given in writing — in practice by the council — not by an owners' vote. A 3/4 vote at a general meeting is required in addition only where the work is a significant change in the use or appearance of common property or common-asset land (Part 5). Many stratas have their own bylaws going further, so read yours.

What if the council says no?
There is no right to appeal a council decision at an AGM. An owner or tenant may apply in writing for a hearing at a council meeting; the council must hold it within 4 weeks, and where the purpose is to seek a decision, must give a written decision within one week of the hearing (s.34.1). Beyond that, the routes are the Civil Resolution Tribunal or the courts.

Paying for it mid-crisis

The Act allows spending without owner approval from the operating fund up to the limit in your bylaws (or, if the bylaws are silent, the lesser of $2,000 and 5% of the annual operating-fund contribution), and from either fund where there are reasonable grounds to believe an immediate expenditure is necessary to ensure safety or prevent significant loss or damage (see the Province's CRF guidance). Outside a short list of cases — depreciation reports, work recommended in the most current depreciation report, EV charging infrastructure and related reports — other contingency reserve fund spending needs a 3/4 vote.

A cleaner approach is to decide in spring, not in August. The council may delegate spending powers by resolution that either authorises a specific amount for a specific purpose or sets a maximum amount plus the purposes or conditions for spending it (Standard Bylaw 20).

Keep the plan where the next council can find it

Heat plans die when the council turns over. Record the decisions in council minutes, keep filter specifications and service contracts with your maintenance records, and store the plan with the corporation's documents rather than on a volunteer's laptop. ManageStrata exists for that continuity: the management company can change, but the strata's knowledge — documents, minutes, votes and books — belongs to the corporation. If you are trying to work out what your bylaws already say about window units, exterior alterations or amenity use, tools like SearchStrata can run an AI analysis across your filed documents to surface the relevant clauses before council debates them.

This article is general information about BC strata law, not legal advice; verify against the current Strata Property Act and Regulation or consult a BC strata lawyer.