Wildfire management in B.C.: protecting biodiversity and communities

FOREST AND FIRE MANAGEMENT

New ways to think about the natural role of fire in healthy forests

Today, the impacts of climate change on forest health with B.C.’s more than 100 years of fire exclusion and suppression is highlighting new challenges and shifting paradigms in forest and fire management. Resource managers are looking at ways to restore the natural role of fire in the landscape—to support resilient, healthy forests while reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire.  

Regenerating forest l Photo credit: Diego Sanchez

Fire adaptation

Species that can take the heat

Wetter coastal and inland areas of B.C., like the west coast of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii, can expect to have a large fire every 250 years or more, while in dry areas of the province like Kamloops and Cache Creek, large fires can be expected every 4 to 50 years. The species distribution in these ecosystems is impacted, in part, by the frequency and intensity of fires.  

Many ecosystems in drier regions are adapted to the role of fire in ecosystem maintenance. Ponderosa pines, for example, can withstand low-intensity brush fires. For other species such as Interior lodgepole pine, the heat from the fires helps release seeds from serotinous cones specially evolved to harness the power of fire for regeneration.  

The thick bark of trees like ponderosa pines (pictured) allows them to survive low-intensity fires. l Photo credit: Barbara Zimonick

SHAPING FOREST DYNAMICS

Firekeeping and fire management

The shaping of forest dynamics in B.C. is not restricted to naturally occurring wildfire. Before settlers arrived, Indigenous cultural burning was practiced across Canada to support agriculture, to encourage the regeneration of medicinal and food plants, to attract certain animals with the regenerating vegetation, and for other cultural purposes. 

Tim Lezard is a councillor with the Penticton Indian Band and is responsible for the Band Council’s lands, natural resource, and environment portfolio. His grandmother was a firekeeper who actively managed the land until she passed away in 2003.

“My grandmother would be given jobs by the older people, to burn the land for rejuvenation,” he shares. “The land needed to be cleaned, for us and for the animals, to maintain the grasslands and the plants that support our communities and the animals like deer and elk.” For generations the people of the Penticton Indian Band used fire to improve forests and knew effective methods for burning patches of land on rotation each year—knowledge gained from elders and passed on to through traditional teachings.

“The practice and knowledge of firekeeping has been passed down through our oral traditions, and our management of forests was very effective,” Lezard says. “When settlers first came to these lands, they thought the forests were so beautiful and “pristine,” but that was a fallacy—it was beautiful, but it wasn’t untouched. It was touched and managed by our firekeepers, and was beautiful because we were managing the lands through the use of fire.”

In the early 1900s, forest fires were deemed to be counter to the public interest—threatening lives, settlements, and communities, destroying valuable timber, and putting livestock at risk. Igniting forest fires was made illegal, and investments were made in forest firefighting infrastructure.

Summer wildfire near Alkali Lake in the Cariboo region. l Photo credit: Michael Bednar 

BEYOND THE WATCHTOWER

Addressing the increasing scale and intensity of wildfires

Tony Pesklevits is Strategic Advisor with BCWS and works to develop wildfire management strategies and programs for the province. “In the early to mid–1900s, the BCWS mandate was very much focused on protecting the timber resource—this was the era of watchtowers and backcountry rangers, and the work was seen as an extension of forestry,” he shares. “Our focus began to shift in the 1980s and 1990s as wildfires became more and more of an issue in communities—the most significant example at that time being the Kelowna fires of 2003, which led to the Filmon Report. Since then, prevention and risk reduction have become a core and growing part of BCWS’ mandate.” 

The scale and intensity of wildfires in the province have been increasing since statistics began being collected in 1950, five of the seven worst fire seasons on record have occurred since 2014. In 2017, 2018 and 2021, B.C. experienced devastating fire seasons that saw hundreds of homes lost to wildfire, thousands of people and communities evacuated and serious air quality and health impacts, along with catastrophic environmental effects. The cause of this increase in fire activity and severity is two-fold—the impacts of climate change combined with the increase in fuel owing to decades of successful fire suppression. And when it comes to climate change, forest fires are both intensified by a warmer climate and contributing to it—wildfires release significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.   

Forestry worker thinning a forest to prevent large forest fires. Proactive brush and tree thinning, and controlled burns can help reduce the risk of large forest fires. l Photo credit: stockstudioX via Getty Images 

WHAT IS PYRODIVERSITY?

Seeing wildfire through a different lens

Today, the mandate of the BC Wildfire Service looks to preserve the natural role of fire while also protecting people and property. In describing the organization’s vision, Pesklevits draws clear connections to Indigenous leadership and traditional knowledge. 

 “Pyrodiversity is a mixture of fires of various severities and sizes. It sustains biodiversity and constrains the risk of large, catastrophic wildfires, by preventing the build-up of fuel and breaking up the landscape into a patchwork which limits fire spread and severity,” he explains.  

The exclusion of cultural burning has reduced this pyrodiversity, and returning to the managed, sustainable patchwork is a priority for the land managers like Tim Lezard of the Penticton Indian Band. “You can see the impacts of removing fire from the landscape—we now have big, hot burns that are very destructive, as well as too much ponderosa pine and tree cover that crowds out the plant species that support the animals and our own needs,” he says. “We are seeing more recognition of traditional knowledge and practices when it comes to fire, and we are working to see policies and practices change to respect the connectedness of the ecosystems and the role of fire.”  

It’s a goal that is echoed by the BC Wildfire Service. “Over the 20^th century, as fires were suppressed, so were traditional knowledge and capacity. As a result, we’ve lost pyrodiversity, and with it, ecosystem health. One of the key strategies to restore the natural role of fire in B.C. is to work with First Nations and assist them in gathering and sharing their traditional knowledge, re-building their capacity and re-introducing cultural fire to their traditional territories.”

Summer wildfire at Alkali Lake in the Cariboo region. l Photo credit: Michael Bednar 

PLANNED FIRE

Cultural and prescribed burnings to prevent catastrophic wildfire

Proactively managing fuel loads and actively managing for the benefits of fire are key priorities for the prevention of catastrophic wildfire. Government resource managers are undertaking many management activities to deliver on these objectives, often collaboratively with communities and Indigenous nations whose territories interface with forests. An important tool is cultural or prescribed burning—also called planned fire.  

Fire-affected timber on Terrace Mountain. l Photo credit: Patrick Armstrong / Moresby Creative

IT’S A BALANCING ACT

When it comes to planned fire, what about smoke and air quality?

While planned fire is increasingly viewed as a critical tool for forest managers, it is often not well understood or supported by the public in general. Amongst the public, the biggest concern understandably relates to smoke and the associated air quality impacts.   

Detailed regulations dictate when cultural or prescribed fire can be undertaken so as to manage air quality impacts from smoke. Pesklevits notes that accepting the need to reduce the risk of uncontrolled fire means also balancing the air quality impacts of well-timed, controlled fire versus catastrophic wildfire.  

“In recent wildfire seasons we’ve seen prolonged periods of very serious air quality issues in many communities—there was a period this summer when Revelstoke had the worst measured air quality on the planet,” he says. “With climate change driving increased risk of catastrophic wildfire seasons, there really is no “no smoke” option to choose from. We need to evaluate the relatively minor smoke impacts of well-planned burning in good venting conditions (when smoke disperses quickly) against the much more serious impacts of weeks-long air quality advisories that we continue to see in bad fire seasons.” 

Public outreach and education are a priority, to build understanding for the need for planned fire, and for how forest managers undertake this activity safely and with a view to mitigate risk and impacts on communities. “When people haven’t seen fire in 100 years, except large catastrophic wildfires, they view it as negative and destructive,” says Lezard.  

Summer wildfire at Alkali Lake in the Cariboo region. l Photo credit: Michael Bednar