Wildfire has always been here, and humans have always had a relationship with it. These days, we have recognized that our relationship to fire has been less than ideal. Wildfire smoke has consumed our summers, wildfire threat has persisted in our minds, and there seems to be no end in sight. So, how do we begin to change our relationship to fire? How do we go from surviving it, to thriving with it? The knowledge exists, the solutions are there, how do we make it happen? Transformational change is hard.
Resources
Centre for Wildfire Coexistence
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act
Sponsors
Quotes
23.23 - 23.34: “Trees are really amazing; trees will colonize till they establish and grow and persist in any space where the seedling can arrive and be given an opportunity to survive.”
1.24.36 - 1.24.58: “Communities and ecosystems in BC are not yet ready for climate change or wildfires we are experiencing. We can continue on this path unprepared and surprised every time fire hits yet another community or we can make the changes - the transformative changes that are urgently needed.”
1.33.11 - 1.33.25: “So much of our fuel mitigation overlaps with ecological restoration but we need to allow it and support it to happen and then we need to enable that biodiversity back onto the land. It can be a win-win.”
1.37.49 - 1.38.11: “If our landscape-level forest management plans are not ecosystem-specific using the best available western science and Indigenous knowledge, we will not achieve - even with a revolutionized version of forestry - we will not achieve the type of resilience to have a sustainable forest industry nor will our communities and ecosystems be resilient.”
Takeaways
The more awareness, the better (4.53)
Lori’s foray into fire research came from her interest in forest ecology and forest dynamics. She has studied disturbance regimes through tree rings and ground forest research for over 20 years. Tree rings help reconstruct fire histories, a tool that has become relevant in light of recent high-intensity wildfires that have impacted communities’ health and safety and changed ecosystems. She highlights the importance of fire safety awareness and training in preventing wildfires, since “almost half of the fires in Canada are started by people”. As the snow melts, many “zombie fires” that have been sitting in the snow or smouldering in peat will pop up.
The Centre for Wildfire Coexistence (10.34)
The Centre for Wildfire Coexistence has been recently launched at the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, in collaboration with its campus in the Okanagan. As the Koerner Chair in Wildfire Coexistence, Lori looks forward to the opportunity to expand and build on the long legacy of interdisciplinary research they have conducted on wildfire. Their research began with studying tree rings to understand fire patterns and how they directed forest dynamics, then expanded to understand historical fire regimes and Indigenous fire stewardship, and now looks at social consequences and the recovery of ecosystems and communities in BC.
What tree rings tell us (12.54)
Lori’s research takes place at the Tree Ring Lab at UBC, processing samples from the forest to understand how historical fire regimes functioned across a range of ecosystem types. Tree ring records of large thick bark trees go as far back as 850 years ago and tell us about the exact season and year of repeated lightning-induced low-intensity fires at very short cycles, which damaged trees without killing them. Indigenous fire-keepers would manage the landscape by intentionally lighting fires to cultivate plants, generate foliage for wildlife, and create forest-based gardens that provided food, and medicinal and ceremonial plants for Indigenous people in BC.
Historical fires (15.45)
Lori laments that Western society has resisted incorporating Indigenous knowledge into land management planning. Tree rings provide some quantitative metrics that demonstrate Indigenous knowledge of the fire intervals and their impacts on the ecosystems where the fires burned. They can act as a template for eco and cultural restoration as we move forward in working on Indigenous-led programs to revitalize the forest on traditional territories. Oral histories tell of traditional rounds, using fire on different parts of the landscape throughout the year, for multiple cultural purposes. Forests in the past were a lot more diverse and fire-resilient.
Viewing fire as bad (20.03)
Lori points out that European settlers made it illegal for Indigenous people to practise their cultural burning on traditional territories and created reserves and residential schools to remove traditional practices from the land, creating “an abrupt change in the way that fire functioned in the ecosystem”. Western cultures were fire-averse, and their views of fire as destructive and negative were reflected in provincial forest policies for more than a century, directing that fires be prevented and put out as much as possible. Over the last 70 years, 92% of fires were put out in 24 hours, and the rest of the public only sees the 8% of fires that escaped modern methods.
The fire deficit (21.49)
Lori shares that good fire or cultural burning, low-intensity fires created intentionally through cultural land practices, maintain heterogeneity and variability of forests and diversity of ecosystems essential to maintaining biodiversity in BC. Surface fires served to not only maintain open forest conditions and heterogeneity of the landscape but within patches of forest, maintained a low density of the trees and revitalized the understory. The fire deficit, the missing gap with no surface fire, is from 2 to 10 fire cycles across interior BC. In the absence of surface fires, flammable biomass accumulates on the forest floor, giving rise to high-intensity fires.
The fire suppression paradox (26.21)
“Our good intention was to protect the forest from fire; the unintended consequence was to build up the fuel and create a scenario where unfortunately, when fires do burn now, they are much higher impact”, Lori laments. Reintroducing fire as proactive mitigation is important in forests where the fire regime has been disrupted and fuel has accumulated, putting communities, critical infrastructure or other values like drinking water supplies or habitat for an endangered species in danger. We can proactively manage in those areas to undo the consequences of fire suppression and revitalize those ecosystems, restoring their structure and function.
Three critical factors that control wildfire behaviour (27.58)
Lori lists three critical factors that control wildfire behaviour and effects - the interactions between weather and topography, the intensity of the fires, and the fuels. Humans cannot control the weather or the topography, but fuel can be controlled using strategic and nature-based solutions to control the intensity of the fires and create resilience both in the ecosystem and the communities embedded in them. As we understand how forests depend on natural disturbances to sustain their function, structure and composition, we can manage our forests from a fire perspective, where firefighters will continue to be an important part.
A step in the right direction (31.26)
Lori emphasizes that good fire needs to be brought back to the land to manage ecosystems so they are better prepared to absorb and coexist with fire. In 2012, the mandate of the BC Wildfire Service shifted to say that where fires were putting lives, homes and values at risk, they would still be put out, but fire management in BC would be expanded to allow fire to be a part of the ecosystem and its restoration. Wildfires that are away from communities and critical infrastructure are now managed instead of put out to create heterogeneity and bring diversity back onto the landscape.
Newer fire management practices (33.38)
Due to the history of fire suppression which has caused the buildup of fuels and uniformity of landscapes, even natural wildfires that start from lightning can have devastating effects on ecosystems during extreme heat events. During cooler and wetter years, naturally ignited fires away from communities could be managed instead of suppressed to have the desired positive ecological effects. Parts of the fire close to communities may still be suppressed, in a combination of both active and passive management. Old forest management practices managed for timber and emulated the rare 8% high-intensity fire disturbances.
A challenging situation (38.13)
Lori describes the present landscape which has scattered patches of dense conifer forests that are even aged at various stages of age and development. These forests are often loaded with fuel, making them susceptible to fire. In the 80s and 90s, along with cut blocks, broadcast burning was done, which involved burning the harvested area to get rid of the forest residue, thus acting as fuel breaks during forest fires and exposing mineral soil which was good for planting native tree species. Concerns about smoke stopped these prescribed burns that provided the benefits of surface fires, leading to the accumulation of fuel and high-intensity fires.
Time for transformational changes (42.06)
Lori suggests repurposing unusable biomass from the timber industry instead of burning them and reconsidering the importance of uneven age forest management, harvesting only parts of stands and leaving trees on-site and a canopy intact to protect regenerating seedlings and maintain habitat structures for many species. Given the multiple impacts of climate change, Lori believes it is time to reconsider forest management - where, when and how we harvest - to sustain the forest-based economy of BC into the future. Transformation is complex since it ties into the economy and livelihoods, but ecosystem-based management can show the way ahead.
Local capacity building (54.47)
Lori claims that transforming our forest management to take the details of the forest into account gives us greater resilience and potential. The change in the fire management mandate in BC is promising, but she shares data that suggests the province is “disproportionately spending money in emergency reaction mode and we are forgetting to allocate a comparable amount of money into proactive mitigation”. Her advice is to empower BC’s 154 municipalities, and 204 Indigenous communities through funding and education to execute their wildfire resilience plans and develop solutions for their communities.
Mitigation is like insurance (1.03.04)
While proactive mitigation is decentralized to local communities, it is underfunded. While wildfire response is still highly centralized, their capacity is strained. BC has burned 6 million hectares since 2017, much near communities and timber harvesting landscape. The recent provincial budget allocated 60 million dollars towards mitigation but Lori believes that 10 times that amount is needed for the problem to be addressed. Climate change dictates more such fires in the future, predicting rising costs of firefighting, losses of homes, farmlands and wildlife habitats, medical costs for the vulnerable impacted by smoke, and damage to drinking water supplies.
Fuel treatments work (1.11.57)
Lori offers examples of mitigation, where communities have invested to reduce the surface fuels in the forests through prescribed burning to counteract the fire suppression effect - the Christie Mountain Fire and the Logan Lake Treemont Creek Fire. Lori has a collaborative research project with the BC Community Forest Association, whose findings reveal that fuel-untreated areas had 85-100% tree mortality, whereas fire burned through treated areas as surface fire and kept 70% of the trees alive. She narrates the damage caused by the McDougall Creek Fire, and shares that in the absence of treatments, 5 times the damage would have been done.
Cognitive dissonance (1.19.34)
Lori underscores the issue of the clash of different levels of government in funding and execution of projects. While funding and Indigenous relations are a federal subject, wildfire is a provincial jurisdiction. She hopes that the provincial legislature will understand the importance of contributing funds in order to make changes in policies and practices that will govern forest management. The forest industry is waiting for the government to change the rules. Wildfires are not as prioritized as earthquakes by all the parties involved.
Be fire smart (1.26.21)
Lori urges anyone who has a home or recreational property in a fire-prone environment to follow fire-smart principles. Investing in fire-proofing one’s home and understanding how fuel treatments and prescribed burning can help are steps to take toward changing fire behaviour to reduce wildfire risk. Download the ‘FireSmart Begins at Home’ app to keep yourself informed and ready. Lori also warns that dense forest cover is a sign of 150 years of excluding Indigenous fire stewardship. The need of the hour is to work with Indigenous collaborators to reconfigure forests to bring cultural burning back on the land.
Win-win situation (1.33.26)
Lori finds that much of the biomass that puts communities at risk can be converted to clean bioenergy. Some First Nations use the biomass they remove from the forests around their community to create heat energy that supports their local band office, the medical center and their resource management offices. Investing in green energy solutions for remote and rural communities would be a great way to use the biomass. Those Indigenous-led initiatives and solutions are ones that could also be contributing to the wildfire and climate change adaptation, Lori says.
Co-existing with fire (1.36.14)
BC has a provincial act, The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, inspired by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. BC is mostly unceded land, since there was no treaty or legal agreement between BC or Canadian governments and Indigenous peoples. As a component of reconciliation, they are rethinking who will make decisions for the land. Lori urges decision makers to keep the role of climate change and fire in mind, and is excited about the collaboration with Indigenous communities to face the imminent effects of climate change.
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