John Betts

John Betts, executive director of the Western Forestry Contractors’ Association (WFCA) says B.C. must “take the heat out of the woods” as wildfire risk grows. Nearly a century of fire suppression has left much of B.C.’s forests, including in the Okanagan, primed to burn hotter and more destructively than they ever would have naturally, says Betts, warning the province still isn’t responding at the scale the problem demands. John Betts, executive director of the WFCA represents independent B.C. forestry contractors and consultants. Betts says communities that have lived through devastating wildfires are increasingly rallying behind proactive landscape planning. “You’ve got the makings of good cooperation between the wildfire service and some communities,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s coming through, in some cases because of trauma.” …He says the solution isn’t simply to reintroduce fire everywhere at once, but to combine controlled burning with thinning and removal of dead and smaller trees.