After more than three decades working in forestry and wildfire risk in British Columbia, I have come to see our wildfire challenge less as a failure of knowledge and more as a question of how we choose to invest wildfire mitigation funding. Each summer, we prepare for wildfire season as if it were an unpredictable emergency. In reality, much of the risk we face is well understood and well documented. We know where our most vulnerable forests are in relation to values at risk. We know which communities are exposed and we have a growing body of evidence showing what kinds of interventions can change fire behaviour on the ground.

What is less clear is whether our investment patterns reflect that understanding in a meaningful way.

A System Built to Respond

British Columbia has developed one of the most capable wildfire suppression systems in the world. When fires threaten communities, the response is rapid, coordinated and, in many cases, highly effective. That is something the province should take pride in. But wildfire suppression continues to dominate how we fund wildfire management overall.

Over the past two decades, spending on fire suppression has consistently outpaced investment in prevention and mitigation. In earlier years, suppression costs typically ranged from $150 million to $250 million annually, while prevention programs operated at a much smaller scale. Today, both numbers have grown. Suppression spending now averages in the range of $500 million annually, with severe seasons pushing well beyond that. In 2023, total wildfire expenditures exceeded $1.1 billion. Mitigation funding has increased in recent years, particularly for fuel management and community protection. Even so, it generally remains in the range of $100 million to $200 million annually.

The result is a system that is highly effective at responding to fire but still evolving in how it invests in reducing risk before ignition. In effect, the majority of public spending continues to flow after fires start, rather than toward reducing conditions that drive their severity.

The Scale of the Problem

In my experience, the most important question is not whether we are doing mitigation work – we are – but whether we are doing enough of it in the right places to influence outcomes at a scale that matters. British Columbia has tens of millions of hectares of forest that are capable of sustaining wildfire in the vicinity of the WUI and near other important values at risk. Annual treatment levels, however, are measured in tens of thousands of hectares.

That work is important, particularly around communities and infrastructure. I have seen firsthand how fuel treatments can reduce fire intensity, rates of spread, and create safer conditions for firefighters. But wildfire operates at a much larger scale than individual projects. We are making progress at the project level, but wildfire risk is driven by the landscape level. When fires are driven by extreme weather (drought and wind) and continuous fuels across entire landscapes, isolated treatments – no matter how well designed – can only do so much. This is not a criticism of the work being done. It is a recognition that the scale of the problem is significantly larger than the scale of our current response on the mitigation side.

Targeting the Right Risk

A related issue is not just how much we invest in mitigation, but how those investments are prioritized. British Columbia has invested significantly in wildfire risk assessment over the past two decades. We now have detailed, spatially explicit information on where wildfire risk is highest, where values are most exposed and where treatments are most likely to influence outcomes. However, in practice, mitigation funding is not always allocated in a way that fully reflects that information.

Projects are often influenced by factors such as program availability, local readiness, tenure complexity, or short-term funding windows. These are understandable constraints, but they can result in investments being distributed more broadly than strategically. If mitigation is to be treated as a form of long-term infrastructure, it should also be prioritized that way.

In a risk driven system, where we invest should matter as much as how much we invest.

That means directing a greater share of funding toward:

• Communities and corridors with the highest documented risk
• Areas where fuel conditions and fire behaviour pose the greatest threat to public safety.
• Locations where treatments can influence fire spread at a landscape scale.

This is not about reducing support for lower-risk areas, but about recognizing that not all treatable hectares contribute equally to risk reduction. Aligning investment more directly with documented wildfire risk would not require new science. It would require a clearer connection between the risk information we already have and the decisions we make about where to act.

Why the Balance Is Hard to Change

There are good reasons why suppression continues to account for the majority of wildfire spending. When a community is threatened, there is no practical alternative to deploying resources at whatever scale is required. Those costs are immediate and unavoidable. Mitigation is different. It requires sustained effort over extended periods, often across multiple jurisdictions and land tenures. Its benefits are real, but they are not always immediately visible, and they are often validated by planning or events that do not occur.

There is also a question of timing. Suppression funding expands when needed. Mitigation funding tends to move more slowly, tied to planning cycles, capacity, and available workforce.

All of this makes the current balance understandable. But it does not necessarily make it optimal.

Thinking About Mitigation Differently

One way that governments could approach this this is to think about wildfire mitigation less as a program and more as a form of long-term infrastructure. In other sectors – flood management, transportation, utilities – we invest over decades to reduce exposure to known risks. Those investments are not expected to eliminate risk entirely, but to make systems more resilient and reduce the severity of impacts when events occur.

Wildfire can be viewed in a similar way.

Fuel management, prescribed fire and community-level treatments are not substitutes for suppression. But they do change the conditions under which fires burn and the effectiveness of response efforts. In practical terms, this can mean lower fire intensity, slower rates of spread and a higher likelihood of successful containment. It can also mean fewer losses where communities and treatments intersect.

Looking Ahead

As wildfire seasons become longer and more complex, it is worth considering how the balance between response and mitigation evolves.

Recent increases in funding for prevention are a step in the right direction. The question is whether those investments can be sustained and scaled over time in a way that matches the level of risk. That may involve longer-term funding commitments, clearer prioritization of high-risk areas and closer integration between land-use planning and wildfire management. It will also require recognizing that meaningful change will not happen in a single funding cycle. It will take consistent investment over decades.

A Matter of Alignment

British Columbia has the expertise, the operational capability, and the policy tools to manage wildfire risk effectively. The remaining challenge is one of alignment – ensuring that how we invest reflects what we know about the problem.

Wildfire will remain a defining feature of this province. The extent to which it affects communities, infrastructure and public finances will depend, in part, on whether we continue to emphasize response, or gradually shift more effort toward reducing risk over time.

From where I sit, the opportunity is not to rethink wildfire management entirely, but to better align our investments with the reality we already understand. That alignment between what we know and how we invest may determine how wildfire affects this province in the decades ahead.

Author Bio

Bruce Blackwell is a registered professional forester and wildfire consultant based in British Columbia. He has more than 30 years of experience in forest management, wildfire risk assessment, and community wildfire protection planning.