The fireside chat on wildfire prevention and resilience at the 2026 COFI Convention brought together Dr. Jill Harvey, Canada Research Chair in Fire Ecology at Thompson Rivers University, and Leonard Joe, CEO of the BC First Nations Forestry Council. Harvey presented research findings from several active projects before the session moved into a Q&A format moderated by Joe. Harvey opened by placing the current wildfire crisis in historical context, drawing on fire scar records from interior Douglas fir trees that carry evidence of fire events stretching back 400 years. She described tree ring data from the Churn Creek protected area showing fire occurring on a 15-to-25-year cycle from 1620 through 1896 — evidence, she said, of deliberate, knowledge-informed land stewardship by Indigenous peoples over centuries. After 1896, fire activity in those records essentially ceases, reflecting the onset of industrial-era fire suppression. The result, she said, is a landscape now laden with fuel accumulated over more than a century with little natural or managed release.
Harvey said BC is at the leading edge of climate change’s effects on wildfire. Since 2016, six of the province’s largest wildfire seasons on record have occurred, and in 2023 alone, 6% of BC’s forests burned in a single year — an amount that cannot be harvested or regenerated quickly. Suppression costs in BC approached $1 billion in that year alone. She said reburns — areas burning a second or third time within decades — are becoming more common in high-elevation forests and represent a significant compounding challenge for forest recovery and management.
Harvey described three active research projects. The first involves working with the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation in the Tsilhqot’in territory on community-led fuel treatments, including prescribed burns and thinning, in partnership with BC Wildfire Service and Shifting Mosaics Consulting. The work includes research into culturally important plant species — specifically the camas lily, a traditional food source — and how prescribed fire and post-wildfire restoration planting can support both ecological and cultural objectives. The second project examines experimental planting approaches in high-elevation forests burned since 2015, with early findings suggesting that climate-adapted species selection is outperforming status-quo approaches in post-fire recovery. The third, conducted in partnership with the Ulkatcho First Nation, is examining how long it takes for caribou habitat to recover following wildfire — findings indicate terrestrial lichen, the primary winter forage for woodland caribou, takes approximately 70 years to recover, while appropriate stem density for habitat takes 100 to 150 years — timelines that are becoming increasingly problematic as fire frequency accelerates. Harvey also noted that TRU’s Natural Resource Science Department is currently in the approval process for a new wildfire science concentration within its RPF-accredited program — a development she described as a direct response to the training needs the sector and wildfire management community have identified.
In the Q&A, Leonard Joe asked why, given that every dollar spent on wildfire prevention can save four to six dollars in suppression costs, the province is not allocating more funding toward large-scale fuel management. Harvey said she agreed with the premise, noting that fuel treatments around communities and critical infrastructure do demonstrably reduce fire behaviour and create defensible space for crews — even if extreme fire conditions can occasionally override them. She said landscape-level fuel management plans that create a mosaic of treated areas across larger landscapes are needed, and that the mechanics and logistics of removing fuel from the landscape at scale require more attention and investment.
On salvage harvesting following wildfire, Harvey said the practice can be ecologically justified but requires careful thought about trade-offs. She noted that removing biomass from an already disturbed landscape adds further disturbance, with implications for nutrient cycling and biodiversity. She said salvage can be applied in patterns that retain some biomass and structure, and that decisions about where and how to apply it need to be made at a community scale with multiple values in mind — including economic recovery for affected communities.
Asked directly what she would say to a room full of forestry industry representatives about how they can help address the wildfire challenge, Harvey said she would start with what may sound naive but she believes is worth exploring: fuel-laden landscapes contain fibre, and there may be opportunities to address fuel loads and fibre supply simultaneously. She said she does not have the operational expertise to say how that works in practice, but that it is a question worth the industry engaging on. More broadly, she said what she most wants to see over the next 20 to 30 years is more partnerships between academia, industry, communities, and First Nations — and an openness to using research to inform management decisions in new ways.
Joe, who opened by describing his own earliest memories of lighting fires on the land with his grandfather and uncles, said First Nations have been using fire as a land management tool for generations and that the integration of that traditional knowledge with modern science and industry is where the most promising path forward lies. He closed by reframing the conference theme for the room: if forestry is a solution, he said, then forestry is a responsibility.
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