The president and chief operations officer of the world’s “largest aerial firefighting company” has said not a single one of its aircraft is being contracted out in its home province of BC. Britt Coulson sat down with NowMedia this week to discuss the recent announcement that Coulson Aviation will be converting its first Boeing 737-700 into the world’s highest capacity Large Air Tanker (LAT). Last week, Bruce Ralston, minister of forests, told NowMedia all the leases were signed for aircraft for this year’s wildfire season. On Monday, NowMedia asked Coulson if the Port Alberni-based company had any aircraft contracted to BC. …He said that based on historically political issues with past provincial governments led the company to “go where we’re wanted,” which includes contracts in the US and Australia. Coulson said in the past there was “a negative stigma” attached to the use of the Martin Mars bombers in the early 2000s because they were owned by a private company.

For more than two weeks, firefighters battled to bring the Parker Lake wildfire threatening the northeast B.C. community of Fort Nelson under control. With the fire declared as “being held” on Monday, some found time for another task — hanging a banner from a ladder truck to welcome home returning evacuees. Rob Fraser, mayor of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality which includes Fort Nelson, said he got more hugs on Monday afternoon than he has received in a long time. The evacuation orders covering Fort Nelson and the Fort Nelson First Nation ended at 8 a.m. …A statement from the municipality said the community had been deemed safe to re-enter but there were still active fires in the area. An evacuation alert, requiring people to be ready to leave at short notice, is now in place for Fort Nelson and the First Nation.

Dr. Mathieu Bourbonnais isn’t going to rehash what everyone in the Central Okanagan already knows about wildfires when he opens the three-day Wildfire Coexistence Symposium in Kelowna next week. The Assistant Professor in UBC Okanagan’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences says the event is tailored toward innovative wildfire solutions. “We want to move beyond recognizing the problem to finding and implementing solutions that address the whole-of-society issue of wildfire,” he says. “This is about understanding what’s happening around our communities and making us better prepared.” Dr. Bourbonnais as well as his colleague and co-presenter from UBC Vancouver, Dr. Lori Daniels, have tailored the symposium to as broad an audience as possible. They will touch on new technology and new tactics. They’ve designed the symposium to be engaging, with panels, moderated questions and audience interaction with over 20 experts in various fields.

As wildfires turn large swaths of forests into seas of charred spires, wildfire experts say the blackened blotches on the B.C. landscape can have a lasting effect reducing fire risk and severity. Mike Flannigan, a wildfire researcher at Thompson Rivers University, said historic wildfire scars have less fuels available, meaning fires will burn less intensely and can be used as a break to slow the spread of a raging wildfire. “Because it’s lower intensity, fire management can manage it effectively and suppress it as opposed to a running crown fire, which they can’t,” Flannigan said. “When things are really extreme, really hot, dry and windy, it will burn through, but it generally will be lower intensity, so you can still manage it more effectively than if it was in a forest.” 

Brad Stelfox

BRAGG CREEK, Alberta — According to landscape ecologist Dr. Brad Stelfox, the Greater Bragg Creek ecosystem is an iconic landscape. …One of Stelfox’s slides was a picture of a grizzly bear as it ambled through the West Bragg Creek parking lot adjacent to where a BC logging company is planning on clearcutting next year, in the middle of a heavily-used recreation area. “There is a growing and significant amount of anxiety about a swing towards land uses that are modifying this landscape very quickly, and a new approach to decision-making may be in order.” …Stelfox is an adjunct professor in Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta and the Department of Environmental Design, University of Calgary. …All land uses have benefits, Stelfox said, just as they all have liabilities. The key is to manage land use from economic, social and environmental perspectives at the same time. It’s all about trade-offs. “

Garry Merkel

It’s been four years since a pair of professional foresters hired by the BC NDP government urged the province to take a radically new approach to old-growth forests. In their strategic review, Garry Merkel and Al Gorley said the government should manage B.C.’s old forests as ecosystems rather than a source of timber. …A BC government old-growth update says “significant progress” has been made on implementing 14 recommendations made in the foresters’ review of old-growth strategy. Yet it also cautions it “will take years to achieve the full intent of some of the recommendations.” Environmental groups and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs were quick to criticize the update, saying it lacks concrete commitments to urgently protect B.C.’s remaining old-growth forests. …But Merkel, who is working for the government on contract, urged patience, telling The Narwhal much of the work is taking place behind the scenes. 

British Columbia’s chief forester has set a new allowable annual cut (AAC) level for Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 46, located on southern Vancouver Island. The new AAC for TFL 46 is 360,000 cubic metres, a 5.5% reduction from the previous AAC set in 2012. This decision recognizes the suspension of old-growth harvesting in the Fairy Creek Watershed and the Central Walbran Valley through orders, identifying them as temporary deferral areas within TFL 46. The current temporary deferral areas remain in place. This new AAC supports old-growth forests, accounts for wildlife habitat retention, visual quality and First Nations cultural heritage resources and practices, while allowing for sustainable harvest levels. The determination includes two partitions… with specific rules: one outlining that no more than 180,000 cubic metres can be harvested from forest stands more than 250 years old; and the other outlining that no more than 180,000 cubic metres can be harvested from stands 250 years old or less.