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If B.C. doesn’t turn to large-scale efforts to reduce the risks of wildfire, the full costs of those wildfires could have dire economic consequences, says a paper in the journal Science by wildfire ecologist Robert Gray, UBC professor Robin Gregory, and senior counsel at the University of Victoria law centre, Calvin Sandborn. They said the wildfire picture in B.C. in the past decade is stark. More than 70,000 square kilometres have been burned. The costs to fight those fires were $4.8 billion, with the province setting aside a wildfire contingency of $2.8 billion in its 2023-24 budget. …Indirect costs — that include disaster recovery, property loss, environmental damages, and business and health costs — can push the total costs of wildfires 1.5 to 20 times higher. …The authors recommend that B.C. make a policy shift that sets a clear vision to increase wildfire resilience, establishing targets for how much fire is too much and how much area will be treated…

Additional coverage:

• Globe and Mail, by Justine Hunter: B.C. must spend more now on wildfire mitigation to avoid higher costs in future, paper says
• Science: Wildfire management at a crossroads: Mitigation and prevention or response and recovery?