This past summer once again saw wildfires rip through the BC Interior resulting in lost homes and uprooted communities. As always, we’re left wondering why did this happen? Could it have been prevented?

In the case of the Summerland fire, CBC reported that fuel management and prescribed burning work had been planned in some of the affected areas but had not been carried out. But the situation is more nuance than the reporting suggests. Considerable mitigation work had taken place around the community over the past two decades including fuel management treatments, ecological burns, and targeted grazing. The effectiveness of those efforts, along with other factors across the landscape and efforts of individual local residents, will no doubt be studied in detail in the months ahead. The impact of this wildfire does not mean mitigation failed. Quite the opposite; it suggests that preventative work matters, that FireSmart initiatives by homeowners are imperative, and that communities are safer because of it.

One need only look to 2021 when the Tremont wildfire threatened the town of Logan Lake to see the benefits of wildfire prevention programs. Work there, prescribed by a team of forest professionals to reduce the forest fuel load in the adjacent community forest, aided firefighters in responding, and along with a little luck from the wind, was largely credited with saving the community.

Raising questions about preventative efforts that didn’t happen near Summerland is not about pointing fingers. Rather, it serves as a reminder of the importance of substantial, sustained funding for risk reduction. It emphasizes the importance of municipal and community planning; that comprehensive preventative work, focused on the seven disciplines of FireSmart, is critical. And it highlights that the gap between identifying risk and reducing risk is still too large.

But BC is moving in the right direction.

The Province, BC Wildfire Service, First Nations, local governments, the forestry profession, and many others have spent years shifting towards a more proactive approach. The use of prescribed fire is expanding. Investments in community resilience have grown. Forest management is increasingly viewed through the lens of wildfire risk.

That’s real progress. But progress and results are two different things.

For decades, BC’s wildland fire approach was built around fighting fires after they started. We became very good at suppression. Use of prescribed fire became less publicly palatable, cultural burning by First Nations receded. This led to much of the wildfire expertise becoming concentrated within government agencies and focused on responding to wildland fires when they started. Today’s reality requires something else.

The scale of wildland fire risk facing British Columbia means wildfire prevention must become a broader professional practice. We need more people with the knowledge, training, authority, and accountability to plan and deliver the work that reduces wildfire risk before communities are threatened.

That’s why Forest Professionals BC partnered with BC Wildfire Service to work on building the professional capacity needed for modern wildfire management. We have established three wildfire-related areas of professional practice, developed competency standards, created targeted professional development, and introduced new licensing pathways to ensure that critical wildfire planning is carried out by regulated professionals who are knowledgeable, skilled, and accountable to the public.

This isn’t regulatory box-checking.

When we ask people to design forest treatments around communities, assess risk, plan fuel management projects, or help guide forest recovery after fire, British Columbians deserve to know that work is being done by qualified professionals who are subject to education requirements, ethical obligations, and professional oversight.

The foundation has been built. Now we need to increase the pace at which we execute.

This means continuing to invest in prevention and mitigation. It means expanding professional capacity. It means removing bureaucratic barriers that slow good projects without compromising safety. Most of all, it means recognizing that prevention work has to happen at a scale that matches the threat.

As local government leaders gather at the Union of BC Municipalities conference this month, wildfire will be on everyone’s mind.

The core ingredients for a new vision and approach to wildfire is readily available. The question isn’t whether we know what needs to be done, it’s about whether we’re willing to do enough of it before the next BC community has to evacuate.

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Forest Professionals BC
602-1281 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC, V6E 3J7
604.687.8027
info@fpbc.ca