Region Archives: Canada West

A B.C. man has been ordered to pay the province $100,688 for what it cost the government to fight a wildfire he ignited in 2019. The decision, upheld by the Forest Appeals Commission, came following a complaint by the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS), after they responded to a 2019 wildfire in the Skeena-Stikine region. The decision … shows the liability individuals can face when they don’t plan before lighting a fire. “The total area burned was 11.5 hectares but could have been much larger if BCWS was not immediately dispatched,” said commission panel chair Cynthia Lu. On March 31, 2019, Realtor Eldon Whalen lit a burn pile on his property. Over the coming weeks, he returned regularly with buckets of water and hand tools to monitor the fire. But 40 days later he saw smoke and flames. He called 911 and told dispatchers he didn’t have the gear or water to fight the fire.

Herald Friedenberger, a long-time Nakusp local, wasn’t always privy to logging.  But he and his son Daniel Friedenberger have seen many changes over the years in the Nakusp forestry operations.  Originally from Manitoba, Herald moved to Nakusp in the 1960s when he was 21, looking for work.  His plan was to earn money (at the time, $2 per hour) to buy a new combine for his family farm back home.  Growing up on his family farm is where his knowledge of trapping started. Gophers and other prairie animals earned the young man two cents per tail.  Today, in Nakusp he owns three trap lines with his son and wife. And, has retired as a successful independent logging contractor.  …The work here was different.

Courtney Brown & Digger Pond

The 17th edition of the BC Bike Race returned to Vancouver Island last week, with nearly 700 mountain bike riders from 35 countries competing on some of the most exceptional trails in the world. Mosaic Forest Management provided sponsorship and an access agreement to support the world-class event that has been welcoming riders to Vancouver Island and Coastal BC since 2007. Mosaic and the BC Bike Race signed a memorandum of understanding to share commitments to public safety and environmental values on the land base. The BC Bike Race competitors completed 25-50 km a day on trails in Duncan, North Cowichan, and Campbell River, along with race days in Nanaimo and Cumberland that featured trails on Mosaic’s managed forest lands. “We are pleased to support this world-class event that brings racers and visitors to Vancouver Island to experience some of the most scenic and challenging trails,” said Rob Gough, President and CEO at Mosaic Forest Management. 

The provincial government announced in a recent press release that immediate steps are being taken to help protect rare forest habitats, as well as expand forest management and planning through public engagement. …Most notably, forest licence holders will be required to publish forest operations maps the public has access to. …Whether these new measures and regulations will have an impact on the ongoing local issues with cutting permits and employment in the forestry sector, remains to be seen. Aspen Planers continues to struggle with obtaining cutting permits. Both AP Group and mill union leadership have said the issue behind the Merritt mill’s recent closures is a lack of cutting permits… due to concerns by local First Nations with the applications. …It remains unclear if this will remove the barriers in the licensing process. 

“Fire prevention and suppression polices over the last century have led to a buildup of fuels in our forests, and have contributed to the loss of natural firebreaks in places.” – Keith Atkinson, Chair, BC Forest Practices Board. …Forestry experts have long warned that forest practices and government policies are intensifying wildfire risk. But industry and government have disregarded numerous studies and persistent calls for action. …Mike Flannigan, a professor of fire science at Thompson River University, told the CBC that without climate change this fire season would have been impossible. …Promisingly, techniques to mitigate risks in forests and reduce wildfire events exist. Governments need only adopt them, and of course pay for them. 

A Northwest B.C. environmental group is raising the alarm about the provincial government cancelling more than 1.35 million acres of land designated for conservation and recreational use. SkeenaWild says this was done despite warnings from government personnel and with no consultation with land and resource planning committees including the Bulkley Valley Community Resources Board (BVCRB), Kalum Plan Implementation Committee (KPIC), Indigenous nations, municipalities, regional districts and the public at large. “These cancellations put valued habitats at risk of being removed from public lands, logged or impacted by industrial development, including popular recreational areas such as Klinger Lake, Tyee Mountain, Atlin, and the Stewart estuaries, the non-profit said in a release. The Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship, however, said extensive consultation was conducted and the move is progress toward reconciliation and modernizing land use.

Follow-up coverage, letter by Anne Hetherington, Smithers, BC: Province wrong in conservation land cancellations

Kristina Swerhun… who sits on the board of directors of the Whistler Naturalists, is concerned that the way the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) and its contractors are undertaking fuel-thinning prescriptions is resulting in ecological harm to the forest, particularly to the forest floor, by using logging machines. She wants to see more thought put into potential ecological outcomes while thinning is taking place, and a reassessment of the use of thinning by hand. …In 2022, the RMOW received $10.1 million from the federal government to undertake fuel mitigation in several areas across the municipality. …Forest ecologist Rhonda Millikin… argues the RMOW’s current practices are having adverse effects on the ecology of the forest, increasing the rate at which the forest floor is drying out. The RMOW has long enlisted forester and biologist Bruce Blackwell, of B.A. Blackwell and Associates, to build its fire mitigation plans.

MCLEOD LAKE, BC — In just three years, much of the McLeod Lake Indian Band’s treaty lands were stripped of their bountiful and valuable trees in a surge of logging that included one clearcut almost 3,000 hectares in size. The extensive logging by the band of its own treaty lands has left two former band councillors questioning why so much forest vanished so quickly. Defenders of the logging say that beetle infestations made the speed and scale of the logging necessary. But it’s not clear how much of the timber removed had been degraded by beetles, and some scientists say that not immediately clearcutting such forests will allow them to recover, while still maintaining healthy habitat for plants and animals. …Just how much of a threat this posed is unknown. Neither the band nor the provincial government have posted any information quantifying the alleged damage done by the insects, and with those forests now all logged it’s impossible to tell.

In the forests of BC a series of studies from the past 30 years contends that large, old trees send resources and messages to the seedlings around them. The “mothering” can, hypothetically, help burned landscapes recover faster, boost the amount of carbon dioxide stores in soil, and improve the resiliency of natural systems overall. The idea seems to borrow from bedtime tales about ancient trees and the enchanted forests they foster. …But two papers have recently called into question the evidence. …A paper published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution in February reviewed 26 studies that look at the ability of underground fungal networks to transfer resources and if mother trees send resources to young plants. …Justine Karst, a professor at the University of Alberta… “This sort of popularized idea of their role and how they work with these fungi as these passive conduits in the soil doing things under the direction of trees, there’s just not really evidence for that.”

Jennifer Gunter

The provincial government recently announced that immediate steps are being taken to help protect rare forest habitats, as well as expand forest management and planning through public engagement. The changes come after extensive consultation with First Nations, professional associations, and other stakeholders. Most notably, forest licence holders will be required to publish forest operations maps the public has access to. A digital version is currently being tested, with full functionality expected by 2024. “Providing people with an easy, user-friendly tool to view maps of local forest operations will help to promote transparency and information sharing,” said Jennifer Gunter, executive director of the BC Community Forest Association. “Forest operations maps have the potential to improve public confidence in our sector across the province.” While no date has been given, the requirement for licence holders to publish forest operations maps will go into effect soon, giving the public insight into proposed cutblocks and roads.

RCMP suspect a series of wildfires near Sayward on northern Vancouver Island were intentionally lit and investigators are seeking public assistance. Sayward RCMP said they became aware in June that a series of wildfires near Sayward were human-caused and may have been intentionally lit. The most significant of these fires are the Newcastle Creek Fire, which is currently 230 hectares but is being held, and the recently-discovered Browning Creek Fire, which is much closer to town and, as of 4 p.m. on July 4, is out of control. Other fires, since suppressed, were along the Memekay, White River and Big Tree Mainlines logging roads. RCMP Island District General Investigations Section has taken conduct of the investigation. …Anyone with any information about any of the burning or suppressed wildfires in the Sayward area are asked to call the Island District General Investigations Section at 250-331-6010.

…As wildfire season persists, ongoing debates about the leading cause of the fires is sparking tension among the already embattled Alberta, with some claiming arson while others saying climate change, researchers are pointing to weather and sharpening forestry management as a key to combating future wildfires. …Devon Earl, a conservation specialist at Alberta Wilderness Association said that the provincial government and forestry companies have said the solution to managing wildfires is to cut down older forests because they are more susceptible to burning, but she disagrees. “Old forests and mature forests are actually more resilient to wildfires than younger forests,” Earl said. …But with the amount of industrial clear cutting that is happening, there are more young forests regenerating that tend to be more dry than older forests, making them more susceptible to an intense wildfire. …She said more prescribed burns would help mitigate the intensity of the wildfire seasons.

KAMLOOPS — With the two hottest months of the year still ahead, British Columbia has already lost more than 1-million hectares of forests to wildfires this year. That figure puts BC in the third worst wildfire season to date in terms of land lost. Despite the loss of forest, the fire season has not been as devastating for properties and communities as those prior. The fire danger rating in the Kamloops Fire Centre is currently listed at high, as temperatures across the region are expecting to rise through the weekend. …To assist with the fire danger, 160 firefighters from the United States and Mexico are expected to arrive in B.C. this week and be deployed to the Prince George Fire Centre. The units will be sent elsewhere in the province if the need arises. With the anticipation of fire starts, the Kamloops and Cariboo Fire Centres are re-enacting a campfire bans.

A report from a United Nations body on environmental threats to Canada’s largest national park shows the urgency of the problems, says a spokesman for the First Nation that originally brought concerns about Wood Buffalo National Park to UNESCO. The document, released last week and the latest in series of examinations of the park on the Alberta-Northwest Territories boundary, reaffirms threats from dams, oilsands development and climate change. …The Mikisew Cree brought concerns about the World Heritage site, before UNESCO almost a decade ago. The park’s traditional users saw water levels dropping year after year because, they felt,of British Columbia’s upstream Bennett Dam. They also feared growing oilsands tailing ponds posed a risk to water quality. UNESCO responded in 2016, finding those fears well grounded. Ottawa developed an $87-million plan to better manage and monitor water in the park. The new report is an assessment of how well that plan is working. 

The City of Port Alberni has agreed to support a letter asking for the provincial and federal governments to create an official alternative access road into the community. The West Coast of Vancouver Island was mostly cut off after a wildfire forced the closure of Highway 4. A detour was opened up via Bamfield Main to Lake Cowichan, but this route was lengthy, with limited visibility, slow-moving traffic and lack of amenities. In response, Nuu-chah-nulth nations… drafted a letter calling on the Governments of Canada and B.C. to “make immediate investments” in securing a permanent second access road. …The letter also asks for more investments in wildfire resources, including a contract with the Port Alberni-based Coulson Aviation. …“Two large corporations not only control our access out into the forest, but now they control access in and out of our community,” said Douglas, referring to Mosaic Forest Management.

NELSON, BC — A significant piece of Nelson’s wildland urban interface has a moderate wildfire behaviour threat or higher, according to a new community wildfire resiliency plan written for the Heritage city. Around 15 per cent of the wildland — a one-kilometre wide section of the forest around the city — is subject to the threat of wildfire behaviour, the report by Bruce Blackwell and Associates and John Cathro warned. “This, along with other analyses presented and discussed throughout the document, indicate that wildfire is a real threat to Nelson and its wildland urban interface,” Blackwell wrote. Nelson has begun planning and preparing for a wildfire emergency, he added, but should refer to the community wildland resiliency plan (CWRP) on how to continue this process effectively. …Last year, changes to the format of the CWPP places more emphasis on resilience and preparedness.

VICTORIA — Strategy shifts are urgently needed to cut the risk of catastrophic wildfires in B.C. forests that threaten to decimate ecosystems and communities, says the B.C. Forests Practices Board. The board is calling on the provincial government to undertake a “paradigm shift” in how it manages forests, saying wildfire risk mitigation currently focuses on areas near communities, but leaves the wider forest landscape severely vulnerable. The report comes as the largest wildfire in the province’s history, the Donnie Creek wildfire, continues to burn out of control in the remote northeast. “The key is there’s an urgency to this,” board chair Keith Atkinson said. “We’re obviously experiencing, maybe, our most severe year in front of us.” The Donnie Creek fire, about 150 kilometres southeast of Fort Nelson, is an example of a catastrophic wildfire that impacts few people but will cause lasting damage, he said. …Forests Minister Bruce Ralston said in a statement the report was a call to action to prevent wildfires.

Additional coverage in Castanet by Colin Dacre: ‘No short-term fix’: B.C. forestry watchdog urges wildfire mitigation

Stanley Park’s trees are struggling as drought conditions and a looper moth outbreak have combined to wreak havoc on the population. The dead trees are spurring calls for the park board to start preparing for the worst. Even more concerning, the Vancouver Park Board hasn’t updated its forest fire risk mitigation plan for the park since 2009. The 2009 report predicted that the hemlock looper moth posed a substantial risk to the forest — a risk that has become a reality in the past three years. “About 20 per cent of the standing tree canopy is dead trees,” said Tom Digby, a Vancouver Park Board commissioner. “The whole city is anxious about what that could mean for possible combustibility and fire in the park.”