B.C. lagging on wildfire prevention 2 decades after report’s dire warning: experts

One of the authors of a report into wildfires that devastated British Columbia two decades ago says the province hasn’t done enough in the time since then to reduce fire risk.

In 2003, B.C. had more than 2,500 fires burn through the province’s interior, including the destructive Okanagan Mountain Park wildfire.

In the wake of the fire season, the provincial government commissioned a report evaluating its response.

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The resulting Firestorm 2003 provincial review made several key recommendations, including the drafting of protection plans for high-risk communities.

It also recommended mitigating the risk of wildfire through fuel clearing: the removal of wood debris, underbrush and tree limbs with the goal of keeping fires on the ground and out of tree canopies.

But according to B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, the province has made little progress on that work.

About 16,000 hectares of land have seen risk reduction treatments in the last 20 years — an area about 40 times the size of Stanley Park, but representing just two per cent of the area deemed high-risk.

“We’re bordering on negligence at this point, we really do have a responsibility to future generations to get ahead of this problem,” said report contributor and wildland fire ecologist Robert Gray.

“If we don’t do something in a big way in the next decade or two we’re going to lose the forest industry we’re going to have severely impacted communities and landscapes it’s going to continue to erode our standard of living.”

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Gray said the lack of progress is likely due to a combination of time and money.

Treating at-risk forests is a laborious job, and crews need to return years down the road to do maintenance on areas already cleared.

“Its a very expensive process to undertake. Thinning is very time consuming. It’s hard work, and it hasn’t been incentivized. So a lot of that wood isn’t being used through circular economies” current forestry policies,” said Kira Hoffman, a wildfire ecologist and postdoctoral researcher at UBC.

“It also has not been really completed at the landscape scale, and to do that, it’s a big initiative and it takes a long time. Once it’s done it can be easily maintained, but starting it is a big undertaking.”

B.C. Forests Minister Bruce Ralston said the province has been focusing on its FireSmart program, which provides funding and training for communities to reduce the risks of wildfires that interface with populated areas.

“What that involves is basically work to remove the fuel potential fuel from a fire in what are called the jargon term is interface areas, that’s where houses and subdivisions and buildings join the forest, and that’s the areas that are typically more at risk,” he said. “The uptake has been probably not what we would have wished for.”

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Ralston said he expected the FireSmart program to be a key point of discussion at the upcoming Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in September, adding he believed there will be greater interest in participating in the program following this year’s disastrous season.

He said the province could look at boosting its resources in the 2024 budget.

The province has also increased funding to the BC Wildfire Service to expand its mandate year-round, funding more staff available to do preparation and mitigation work in the off season.

“There’s no doubt that the prospects for wildfires and seasons to come are I think everyone is rightly speculating that they will be more intense, more prolonged, and as you say enter areas where they traditionally have not been expected,” he said.

“It’s important to create landscapes, parks, public place and forests that anticipate the prospect of being challenged by fire in a way they haven’t been in the past.”

Ralston said the government remains focused on fighting the fires that are still burning in vast swaths of the province, but that it will be undertaking an after action review once the fire season ends, which could include looking at how to better reduce wildfire risk.