Clay Steell

Since the Mount Underwood forest fire cut off power and direct road access to the community of Bamfield and Anacla, the town has been abuzz with talk on what it all means. …While we don’t yet know what caused the Mount Underwood fire, we can be certain that climate warming made it vastly more likely to spread out of control. …In addition to climate warming, the legacy of colonial forest mismanagement has also made fires far more likely to spread out of control. Since colonization, a large majority of primary forests have been cut down across this coast and replaced by tree farms, including the area where the Mount Underwood fire has spread. All the while, the forestry industry has shifted from local milling to mechanization and raw log exportation, sending jobs overseas and enriching shareholders while local workers get laid off, with over 50,000 jobs lost province-wide since the late ‘90s.