How big is a hectare and how does it compare to an acre?

It’s forest fire season, which means you’ll be hearing the word ‘hectare’ a lot.

As the BC Wildfire Service spits out estimated sizes for various fires across the province, they’re using hectares as their measurement of choice.

It’s not the most common form of measurement, however, which leaves many people wondering, “just how big is a hectare?”

• 1 square km is 100 hectares
• 1 square mile is 258.999 hectares
• 10,000 square metres is hectare
• 1 hectare is about 2.47 acres

If you’re looking to compare it to something visually, an international rugby field measures in at 1.008 hectares

A little more locally, a CFL field with endzones included is just over half a hectare, meaning a pair of CFL fields side-by-side would be 1.07 hectares.

So when you think about these wildfires that are getting up to thousands and thousand of hectares, now you have a bit more of a reference towards what that size estimated means.

Last year, the Elephant Hill wildfire grew to 191,865 hectares in size, while the many fires that joined together to form the Plateau wildfire ended up at a provincial record-breaking 545,151 hectares.