Region Archives: Canada West

The BC Wildfire Service has outlined its policies regarding responses to house and structure fires following a fire that destroyed Ric and Shirley Martin’s Balsam Road home outside Houston on Aug. 5, 2026. An initial BCWS attack crew did respond, but that was to assess and address any risk of the fire spreading into surrounding forested areas, the service said. “Wildland firefighters are trained to respond to wildfires and other incidents involving vegetation and organic fuels. They are not trained or equipped to respond to fires involving structures or other non-organic materials,” the service stated. “Structural firefighters are trained and equipped to respond to structure fires and to protect and defend properties and infrastructure in the wildland urban interface.” …“In the case of the Balsam Road fire, BC Wildfire Service personnel were present to monitor and address any wildfire risk associated with the incident, while structural fire suppression responsibilities remained with the appropriate local fire response agencies.”

In this newsletter you’ll find these headlines and more:

• Keeping Alberta Wood Moving: Over the last year and a half, escalating U.S. trade barriers have added to an already challenging operating environment. …we have been working on every front available to us—but we haven’t been doing it alone. We have taken Alberta’s forestry story directly to decision-makers… We’ve joined trade missions… We’ve worked to make sure forestry’s story is heard… There is one thing that we know for sure: our forest community is strongest when we speak together.
• Work Wild has been busy growing and thriving as a leading forestry education program in Alberta. This year, our new website and interactive forestry career resources have sparked excitement across the province.
• Our 84th AGM & Conference will take place from September 23-25th. We are excited to welcome guests to Jasper Park Lodge.

Lennard Joe

Lennard (Suxʷsxʷwels) Joe speaks about forestry as someone shaped by it long before he led an organization. Joe, CEO of the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council, brings more than 30 years of natural resource and business experience to the role. A Registered Professional Forester [he] was among the first dozen Indigenous graduates of UBC’s forestry school. That background helps explain why he speaks of forestry not only as an industry, but as a responsibility. …Rural B.C. still depends on forests in ways many city residents no longer see, and Joe’s sharpest message for urban audiences was clear on that. …He talks about how forests anchor local economies and support the services many communities rely on… But he also pushed back against the idea that forestry is only about extraction. …As First Nations take on a greater ownership role in forestry, Joe believes the sector can move toward longer-term investment, stronger stewardship and broader community benefit. 

As fires continue to bear down on B.C., officials are developing an “all-of-society” approach to build community resilience, bringing together FireSmart programs, risk reduction work and the forest sector, according to Forests Minister Ravi Parmar. “I’ve asked my ministry to take a lot of the different pots of money that we have and develop an all-of-society approach,” Parmar said during a Tuesday press conference. He said the approach would include building a “working forest” with resilience as a core part of that work, along with broader efforts to help communities FireSmart their properties and neighbourhoods. Parmar said the province will provide more details later this week. He said that approach is already well rooted in the Okanagan and that he plans to continue conversations with the West Kelowna fire chief and mayor when he travels to the valley next week.

Tara Martin

Growing up on Salt Spring Island, Tara Martin, associate professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia, saw plenty of the wildflowers, Garry oak meadows and understory plants that used to thrive on the southern Gulf Islands only a few decades ago. Over the last 50 years, however, the population of native black-tailed deer has exploded across the islands, eating their way through natural plant vegetation and tree saplings. Martin, who has studied the impact of deer populations on the Gulf Islands for 20 years, says younger generations have no concept of how lush and diverse the islands were, and what was lost. …After looking at a range of options, Martin has concluded that hunting is the most effective and least-costly solution to keeping deer populations down. …Learning to be comfortable with predators on islands is also important, she says, adding that even allowing one or two would help.

Smoke continues to linger over much of Southern B.C. Sunday. Environment Canada’s air quality warnings remain in place for a large portion of the region, including the Thompson-Okanagan. While most of the area is under a “yellow” warning, the South Okanagan and Fraser Canyon regions are under the more severe “orange” warning. Multiple wildfires are actively burning in and around B.C.’s Southern Interior and putting up plenty of smoke, including the Bald Range fire in Summerland and the Ainslie Creek fire in the Fraser Canyon, along with several fires south of the border. Environment Canada warns that the elderly and very young, people with lung or heart conditions, and people who are pregnant should reduce their time spent outdoors during smoky conditions. No air quality warnings are in place for the Metro Vancouver area or the East Kootenays. Smoky conditions are forecast to persist through Monday.

Thousands of pounds of fruit are going to waste in Summerland as farms on the frontlines of a firefight sit empty just as the window for harvest opens, offering a devastating blow in what has already been a difficult year. Adrian Arts, executive director of the BC Fruit Growers’ Association, said that growers have been hit by heat, drought and now wildfire this year alone. Peaches that were to be harvested last week will likely rot on the tree and the remaining fruits that aren’t quite ready for harvest will likely be ruined by ash, Arts said. “I’m guessing a lot of that crop is going to be abandoned along with the peaches, plums, and other fruit ripening this week,” he said. Arts said the repeated crises are exposing weaknesses in existing government support programs that are no longer meeting their needs.

Mike Flannigan

…Global experts are calling extreme fire weather our “new normal”. But as fire scientist Mike Flannigan looks at B.C.’s wildfires of the past, he rejects the term. “We’re moving into uncharted territory. This is our new reality. Some people might say ‘normal,’ but to me, normal sounds like a plateau. We’re on a trajectory, and it’s downward.” Flannigan is a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops whose expertise has earned him the BC Innovation Research Chair in predictive services, emergency management and fire Science. He’s been studying fire for decades. He recently spoke to The Narwhal from Kamloops and shared some data that showed a dramatic increase in area burned across the province in the last 10 years compared to the previous six decades. We asked him to break down what this all means for the future of wildfires in B.C. and the country.

Salmon Arm Deputy Fire Chief Carmen Guidos was called in by council to help extinguish concern wildfire fuel mitigation work done at the Park Hill trail system has exacerbated the fire risk. On the agenda for city council’s May 10 meeting was a letter from resident Stig Keskinen regarding the timing of the city’s ongoing wildfire fuel mitigation program that saw work done along the Park Hill trails in May and June. In the letter, Keskinen posits this is not the time of year to do such work. One reason for this are the resulting “dozens of piles” of forest debris now drying throughout the trail system. …Keskinen wanted to know when they would be dealt with ….Guidos confirmed that is the plan, to burn in the fall – similar to what was done with the wildfire mitigation work at Little Mountain.

Ed Morrice

[Writing in response to July 23 editorial Look to the future when good news follows bad] Yes, forestry is in transition, but the current wildfire situation illustrates the absolute need for forest management that can only exist with a strong forest industry. Sure it will be different but it needs a leader to ensure we don’t just give into easy investment that abandons thoughtful forest management to development of oil and gas and mining extractive industries. We have run out of access to big legacy trees but are awash in growing timber. If it isn’t managed much of it will burn and destabilize other resource sectors. Who wants to invest in a place where wildfire is a major disrupter? Let’s hear the conversation about what forests can do for us, not put it on a back burner to become a future problem. Those conversations are happening. How about The Citizen bring us that story? [END]

Christopher Justice

Vancouver Island has supplied British Columbia with world-class timber for generations, yet too much of the economic value created from our forests leaves the Island along with the logs rather than generating jobs, investment, and long-term prosperity in the communities where those trees are grown. …Yet these challenges also present an opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient forest economy by creating the conditions to keep more of our raw logs at home and transform them into higher-value products that strengthen Vancouver Island’s forestry communities. Achieving that vision will require the Province of British Columbia to work in partnership with local governments, First Nations, value-added wood manufacturers, workers, labour organizations, educational institutions, and others to develop a Vancouver Island Value-Added Wood Manufacturing Strategy. …The objective of a Vancouver Island Value-Added Wood Manufacturing Strategy is straightforward: create greater economic value from every tree harvested on Vancouver Island.

As an advocate for protecting the Peachland watershed water supply, Taryn Skalbania is used to publicly challenging the provincial government’s policies and guidelines governing logging in the forestry sector. But another challenge confronted her with the rapid growth of the Bald Range wildfire, as she faced an evacuation order at 3 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8, from her Princeton Avenue hobby farm just inside the eastern municipal boundary of Peachland. …Skalbania also picked up on comments from Penticton Indian Band chief Greg Gabriel at a press conference in Penticton last Wednesday that included Premier David Eby, calling for the need to examine the forestry sector and logging practices as culprits of drought and massive forest fires. Regarding the recent preponderance of wildfires on the west side of Okanagan Lake, she cited logging was one of several factors playing a role in that occurrence.

Read the Woodlots Weekly for updates from woodlots across BC. As of noon, August 11, 2026, there are 7 woodlots with wildfires burning, all in the Southern Interior of the province. They are located on three different fires: Pear Lake Fire (Clinton/ Meadow Lake), French Bar Creek, and the Bald Range (Summerland) fire. There are 5 other woodlots that are within 5 kms of other wildfires. The record drought conditions is an indicator that these fires will be burning for the coming weeks. The BC Wildfire Service updates their website daily and sometimes hourly for the Wildfires of Note.

The Summer edition of Woodland Almanac has been released. The Conference Brochure is also included as an insert. 

Join Woodlots BC in Parksville this fall for our annual conference and AGM from October 1 to 3, 2026. Register by August 31 to qualify for Early Bird rates and for a chance to win your registration fee back! 

The public is invited to give feedback on the timber supply review for the Williams Lake timber supply area (TSA). People can share their thoughts on the Williams Lake TSA discussion paper by submitting comments before Oct. 5, 2026. The discussion paper provides the results of a timber supply analysis and describes the current legal requirements, geography, natural resources and forest management practices. The information will be used by B.C.’s chief forester to determine how much timber can be harvested in the TSA annually, which is known as the allowable annual cut (AAC). Before setting the new AAC, the chief forester will consider input from First Nations, industry and community members. Public feedback is a part of every AAC decision and is an opportunity for communities to provide input, which will be considered during the AAC determination.

The District of 100 Mile House received a candid look at the current and projected timber supply for the 100 Mile House Timber Supply Area last week. On Tuesday, Aug. 11, Kane Copley, a strategic land manager for the Ministry of Forests, attended council’s regular meeting to deliver and explain the results of the 100 Mile House Timber Supply Area Timber Supply Analysis Discussion Paper. Copley said the review was conducted this year and based on information gathered from January to May. In his presentation, Copley outlined that the Ministry of Forests regularly reviews the timber supply for all areas and tree farm licenses throughout the province. These reviews are done to examine the impacts of current legal requirements and forest management practices on the timber supply, environment, economy and social conditions of the local area.

Greg Gabriel

Penticton Indian Band Chief Greg Gabriel says work needs to be done to mitigate conditions contributing to the Bald Range wildfire west of Summerland. During a news conference Wednesday including B.C. Premier David Eby, Gabriel noted officials need to work with First Nations on solutions, as the PIB remains on evacuation. “We have fires to the north of us, fires to the south of us, fires to the west of us,” Gabriel said. “The amount of devastation and the volatility of those fires is something that we now need to recognize: our world is changing at a rapid pace. You look at other countries; what they experience, similar to what we’re experiencing here in BC.” The PIB chief noted that the Okanagan basin is currently dealing with Drought Level 5, providing the conditions for the current State of Emergency in B.C. and devastation in and around Summerland, including PIB lands.

I am tired of the misdirection surrounding B.C.’s wildfire crisis. …We are constantly told this is strictly a global warming issue—a convenient excuse used to tax regular people for fuel consumption and agricultural methane. But the public needs to realize the truth: local industrial forestry has its foot on the gas pedal, directly creating the explosive conditions for these fires by destroying our natural ecosystem. For decades, the logging industry has used chemical spraying—specifically glyphosate—to systematically wipe out native deciduous trees… In the eyes of timber corporations, these plants are just “weeds” competing with commercial conifer lumber. …We are living in an upside-down system where regular citizens are told to fix global emissions, while multibillion-dollar timber giants are legally allowed to spray chemicals that strip the earth of its natural ability to clean the air, process organic waste, and create oxygen and water for us.

As wildfires continue to ravage BC’s Southern Interior, a City of Prince George committee is looking into whether it should call on the provincial government to launch a public inquiry. At an August 10 meeting of the Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs, Coun. Brian Skakun raised the idea of submitting an emergency resolution calling for an inquiry to next month’s Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver. A state of provincial emergency was declared by the provincial government due to fires on August 8, the day after the District of Summerland had to be evacuated overnight due to a rapidly advancing blaze. “It’s just year after year,” Skakun told his colleagues. “There’s thinning, there’s a whole bunch of things that the province is doing, there’s climate change, but I don’t think collectively the province has looked at the totality of what it’s costing us with tourism … loss of property, insurance, a bunch of things.”

©Arc Ridge FB

A company that sought to protect a ski resort from wildfires claims the B.C. government cancelled the project in violation of its own procurement policies—a move the contractor says could leave it with over $950,000 in liabilities. Based in Vernon, B.C., Arc Ridge Ltd. runs a fleet of spider excavators, machines that can directly “walk” through forests and streams to carry out work while limiting impact to the environment. That makes it an ideal machine to put in fire breaks or clean out forests overloaded with woody fuel, said president and operations manager Ryan Ingham. …Arc Ridge, meanwhile, has filed a number of requests to have the case investigated. …In a document submitted to the deputy minister of B.C.’s Legal Services Branch Monday, July 27, the company claimed it is “entitled to full financial recovery for capital immobilized and operational losses accrued during this period of un-terminated administrative limbo.”

TORONTO – The Steelworkers Humanity Fund (SHF) is donating $30,000 to support individuals, families and communities evacuated by recent wildfires in British Columbia. Hot and dry conditions across much of British Columbia have contributed to another difficult wildfire season, forcing thousands of people from their homes and creating uncertainty for many communities. The United Steelworkers union (USW) has documented impacts in several communities and in workplaces represented by the union across the province. These include evacuations and evacuation alerts, union members serving on local emergency response teams who are helping to protect their communities and fight fires, members trapped in their homes and some who lost their homes to the flames. The SHF is providing $30,000 to the Canadian Red Cross British Columbia Wildfire Appeal to assist those impacted by the wildfires. 

VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will conduct a limited-scope compliance audit of stand-level biodiversity practices and block reserve management by BCTS and two forestry licensees in the North Island Natural Resource District, beginning Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. The audit area is within the North Island Timber Supply Area, extending from Brooks Bay to Port McNeill and encompassing the northern portion of Vancouver Island that is subject to the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan. Port McNeill and Port Hardy are the principal communities in the audit area. The audit will examine the practices of BC Timber Sales’ Seaward-tlasta Business Area, North Island Community Forest and Western Forest Products. Auditors will review harvest planning and on-the-ground practices and reporting, including the establishment and management of wildlife tree-retention areas (WTRAs), to determine compliance with legal requirements. …The audit area overlaps the territories of numerous First Nations. It includes areas covered by the Maa-nulth and Tla’amin modern treaties.

Effective at noon (Pacific time) on Monday, Aug. 10, 2026, the operation of any off-road vehicle for recreational purposes on Crown land is temporarily prohibited throughout Kamloops Fire Centre and Southeast Fire Centre, as well as parts of the Cariboo Fire Centre and Coastal Fire Centre. During this period of extreme and unpredictable fire activity, the priority is public and first-responder safety and the prevention of human-caused wildfires. The operation of any off-road vehicles in these regions during the current wildfire situation creates a potential wildfire risk, such as unintentional ignitions that can lead to new fires. Off-road vehicles include all-terrain vehicles, motorcycle, and off-road side-by-side vehicles. This temporary prohibition of off-road vehicles does not apply to private lands or national parks.

Fire Lake lies near Garibaldi Park. …Five years ago, the B.C. government earmarked the Fire Lake forest as a priority old-growth logging deferral area. Part of the forest sits in a wildlife habitat area that the government set aside for the endangered northern spotted owl… But none of these designations carried any weight last fall when BC Timber Sales auctioned off about 70 hectares of the forest … for clearcut logging. Joe Foy, a campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, drove along freshly bulldozed roads to shoot photos and video of the forest and document recent logging. …When Foy and his colleague combed through B.C. government websites and maps, they discovered the forest around Fire Lake is far from the only federally designated critical habitat for spotted owls that Premier David Eby’s government has slated for logging. …The government claims it is safeguarding species at risk, Foy said, but “species are literally disappearing as they talk.”

Over harvesting in the Kootenay Lake Timber Supply Area (TSA) has depleted primary, old and high-value forest and left most ecosystems unable to meet even minimum legal old-forest targets, according to the Save What’s Left Conservation Society. And that message needs to be communicated to the province, the society contends, through the public comment period — open until Aug. 22 — on the pending Kootenay Lake Forest Landscape Plan (FLP), a document expected to determine forestry decisions in the area for the next 10 years. The society claims the province has offloaded conservation decisions onto First Nations, communities and community forests, while avoiding tenure reform, while it has stalled implementation of the Old Growth Strategic Review and its technical advisory panel recommendations. “Corporations dominate local forestry decisions and they are obligated to shareholders, not to the public trust,” the society stated.

Kevin Kriese

Mark Zacharias

As Canadians bristle at President Donald Trump’s recent threats of tariffs to compensate for wildfire smoke impacts, it is important to consider what more Canada can do. Although Trump’s characterization of Canadian forest management is inaccurate, the broader point is worth considering—wildfire smoke is worsening, and Canada’s current approaches are falling behind. …What does rethinking boreal wildfire look like? First, we can change how our forests are managed to reduce the amount and severity of wildfires over the long term. …the targeted use of Indigenous and prescribed fire can reduce the size and severity of future fires. …Second, Canada must embrace emerging technologies that improve ignition forecasting, early detection and rapid response to supplement traditional wildfire response. …Finally, Canada must shift from thinking about the boreal forest as a wildfire problem to a carbon emissions opportunity to cost effectively reduce both Canadian and global carbon emissions.