cigarette buttA lot of people aren’t getting the message about the dangers of dropping or tossing cigarette butts, so the Coastal Fire Centre is reminding people they could face $173 dollar fine for those discarded butts.

Fire information officer Ellie Dupont says it’s just too darn dry right now.

“The relative humidity numbers are the lowest we’ve ever seen. And to start a fire with cigarette butts, there’s certain conditions that are needed to be met and right now we have those. So a lot of people don’t understand that when they throw their cigarette butt out, it’s more than likely to start a fire if it falls into any kind of flammable material.”

Dupont says the fines don’t end there; you could get hit with a $345 ticket for having a campfire during burning restrictions, and if you actually cause a fire you could be fined up to a million dollars and spend three years in jail.