Fires in Burns Bog could become more common, warn conservationists

At 3,000 hectares, Burns Bog is the largest undeveloped urban land mass in North America.

“It produces oxygen, it stores carbon so it helps with climate change; it filters water out to the Fraser River,” Burns Bog Conservation Society President Eliza Olson said.

Some conservationists say Burns Bog is in trouble. A healthy bog is a wet bog and this one is getting dryer all the time.

“People have been nibbling at the edges by draining it for agriculture and now we’re draining it for roads, we’re draining it for industry,” Olson said.

Then there’s the South Fraser Perimeter Road, which according to the Burns Bog Conservation Society, is restricting the flow of water from the Fraser River to the bog.

Add in concerns about climate change and you have some making dire predictions.

WATCH: Burns Bog fire

3:32 Progress made in race to contain Burns Bog wildfire

• Progress made in race to contain Burns Bog wildfire
• Delta businesses impacted by Burns Bog fire
• How bog fire differs from other wildfire situations
• Crews scramble to keep Burns Bog fire from spreading to Delta industrial park
• Danger of fire burning in Burns Bog
• Challenges of fighting aggressive Burns Bog fire
• Raw video: Firefighters work to contain Burns Bog fire

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“We had some research that came out just six days ago and we warned about the risk of managed peat lands,” Mark Waddington of McMaster University Earth Sciences said. “These are bogs, which have been drained and mined either for horticulture or peat fuel.”

Burns Bog fire: How bog fires burn and why they’re difficult to combat

That could increase the risk of fire like the one currently burning in Delta.

“When they drain a peat land they not only get a lot dryer but the peat gets a lot denser and that causes the fire to propagate down deeper into the soil and causes it to burn much longer,” Waddington said.

The B.C. government, which acquired the land in 2004, has made some efforts to rectify the problem.

“Having blocked the drainage ditches and started to restore the hydrology of the ecosystem, they’re seeing the recolonization of some of the important vegetation that limits the amount of peat burning you get,” Max Lukenbach of University of Alberta Earth Sciences said.

READ MORE: Significant progress made fighting Burns Bog fire; 50% contained

Delta Mayor Lois Jackson said the bog “is a special area and we are working very hard to bring it back to what it was.”

But undoing nearly a century of abuse is no easy feat. Researchers say more needs to be done.

“These fires are going to become more common,” Waddington said. “They’re going to become more severe, so the means towards restoring these ecosystems back to their wet state — the quicker the better.”

– With files from Linda Aylesworth