FOREST FIRES in the WILDLAND URBAN INTERFACE Changes in Forest Structure and Climate Have Increased Wildfire Risk Around Communities
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SUMMER 2004 P re V E N ti NG & M ANAG I NG F orest F ires H ISTORY O F C ANAD I AN T ree PLAN ti NG T oo L S E cosystem A PP roAch to CLIMATE CHANGE PM40026059 CONTENTS C O V E R S T O R Y PREVENTING & MANAGING 6 FOREST FIRES IN THE WILDLAND URBAN INTERFACE Changes in forest structure and climate have increased wildfire risk around communities. The choices before us are to take preventative action at the community and forest management level, or to continue to invest the majority of our dollars in the reactive COLUMNS processes of fire fighting. 4 Editorial FEATURES 11 Focus on Safety 14 AN ECOSYSTEM APPROACH 12 Forest Health TO MANAGE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE 16 Western Report by John Betts Decisions about managing for climate 17 Ontario Report by William Murphy change and forested ecosystems in the long-term should be based on a 18 Quebec Report by Fabien Simard framework of questions. 20 New Brunswick Report by Gaston Damecour 21 PEI Report by Wanson Hemphill A HISTORY OF CANADIAN 23 TREE PLANTING TOOLS 22 Nova Scotia Report by Alan O’Brien Over the past 00 years, planting tools have ranged from mattocks or hoedads to speed spades. This historical review details many of the improvements that Publisher Joyce Hayne Sales Manager Marie Richards have been made to planting tools over Editor Dirk Brinkman many decades. Contributing Writers John Betts / Bruce Blackwell Dirk Brinkman / Gaston Damecour / Joachim Graber Paul Gray / Wanson Hemphill / Janice Hodge William Murphy / Chris Norman / Alan O’Brien Pierre Roy / Fabien Simard INTENSIVE FOREST MANAGEMENT DECISION- 28 MAKING IN ECOSYSTEM BASED Canadian Silviculture is published four times a year by EMC Executive Marketing Consultants Inc., 6058 87A Street, Surrey, BC V3S 7R6. MANAGEMENT Phone 604-574-4577 Fax 604-574-296 Email [email protected] Combining integrated landscape Copyright Canadian Silviculture Association management planning and analytic Subscription rates: 4 issues per year - $30.00 & GST PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40026059 systems will build on the skills, RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO experience and common sense of those CIRCULATION DEPT EMC PUBLICATIONS 6058 87A ST who are familiar with historic planning SURREY BC V3S 7R6 and implementation. email: [email protected] EDITORIAL by Dirk Brinkman Reforest what you reap The BC Ministry of Forests (BCMOF) adding to its Not Sufficiently Restocked Clearly the biggest challenge is going to recently adopted a new performance area (NSR). This simple indicator tells be for the BCMOF to develop a strategy reporting measure in their Service Plan the public whether or not the growing to address reforestation on areas lost as a part of ensuring that the use of the capital in the working forest ecosystem to fire and pests. To keep pace with forests to generate economic benefits is being replaced wherever it has been the rolling average of the area lost to is balanced with the long-term health of removed. If BC is not replacing its capital fire would have taken reforesting an the forest and range resources. depletions, the sustainable harvest will additional 20,47 hectares, using the This is called an indicator of Sustainable decline. 2003/04 average. The exceptionally Timber Productivity which is measured How does this formula drive action? severe 2003 fire season, which burned by the Ratio of area reforested to area The area reforested includes planting 255,000 hectares, might double that harvested, or areas of unsalvageable and natural regeneration and is net average. There is no number yet for fire and pest losses, calculated on of reforestation failures. Harvesting is the rolling average for areas that are a 5-year rolling average. A what? A by any method and includes for any not being salvaged lost to pests and ratio of reforestation to deforestation purpose. Losses to fire and pest are only disease. calculated based on the past five years. the unsalvageable as the salvageable The magnitude of these two combined Averaging over five years gets rid of will be reforested under law. obligations will require the government peaks and spreads response programs The ratio of area harvested to area to establish a special account, much reasonably. reforested by the timber industry, as larger than the whelp of FRBC or FIA. It is one of the indicators that the province reported by the Forest Practices Board The WSCA has proposed BC develop is keeping up with its commitment to province wide audit in 2002, is a great a catastrophic carbon account with the National Forest Strategy 2003- success being in balance or a perfect the federal government, and use 2008, also signed this year. Under the 1. The BCMOF did not report on the the measurable mitigation of carbon commitment to theme one - Ecosystem harvest by oil and gas industry for the emissions through reforestation, Based Management - the NFS includes temporary use of seismic lines and salvage and conversion to fund a the following action item: well sites. This industrial use without special program for both extreme fire .5 Reforest areas that are cut for reforestation needs to be redressed and pest events. Work on that front is temporary uses and use afforestation, to restore sustainability in the harvest/ now urgent. where feasible, to mitigate the reforestation balance. When governments introduce self- permanent loss of forest. The ratio being greater than , from monitoring accountability measures, The BCMOF reports that in 2000 the 993 to 999, reflected a focus on we should applaud. BC’s commitment ratio was .2. In other words, over the backlog reforestation in the NSR. The is implicit in proposing a simple past five years, on average, 20% more cost-sharing programs with the Federal indicator. The ratio of area reforested area was being reforested than was Government under Forest Resource to area deforested is simple. Simple being deforested. However, in 200, it Development Agreements and with criteria have the potential to provide dropped by 27% to 0.93 by losing a peak (a reluctant) industry through Forest clear direction which the public can get year like 996, and adding a problem Renewal BC has been replaced by a behind. Public support will be needed year like 200. In 2002, it fell further to Forest Investment Account (FIA). to enable all stakeholders to overcome 0.82. Despite the reporting deadlines, However, insufficient or uncertain the obstacles to sustaining the forest data is not in for 2003. With 255,000 year-to-year funding has resulted in ecosystem capital. hectares burned and many more lost to industry focusing on other priorities. To engage the public requires the pine bark beetles, in 2003, this indicator Reforestation and tending of backlog silviculture industry to understand and is going to be difficult to report without a and current fire and pest areas are at engage with this ratio and communicate clearly committed plan. their lowest levels in 20 years. These the challenges of reversing BC’s slide But that is what is good about an statistics do not include areas denuded into eroding its working forest capital. indicator. Every year BC is below , it is by the summer of 2003 fires. The forest is counting on you. 4 Canadian Silviculture Summer 2004 5 Preventing & Managing Wildfires in the Wildland Urban Interface by Chris Norman 6 Canadian Silviculture Summer 2004 In 2003, BC suffered the worst fire tools such as the FireSmart program by John Gledhill of the Tasmania Fire season on record for decades with developed by Partners in Protection, Service. Citing the fact that most deaths over 30,000 evacuated and the loss of an Alberta based coalition of agencies. and injuries related to wildfire are businesses, hundreds of homes, and Rick Arthur, President of Partners in caused during the evacuation process firefighters’ lives. As a result, the province Protection, reports that the program has rather than from the fire, Tasmania and mandated the Honourable Gary Filmon, now been adopted by many communities some other provinces in Australia have former premier of Manitoba, to review across Canada providing clear guidelines adopted a program called “Prepare, BC’s 2003 experience. His ‘Firestorm and practical tools to create wildfire safe Stay and Survive” where homeowners 2003’ report emphasized that efforts be communities. are encouraged to create a defensible directed to improved preparedness, fuel A controversial concept is being promoted space around their residences to reduce management, emergency management, training and education. The report sites several factors that have lead to increased risk and severity of fire: changes in the forest structure and density due to decades of fire suppression, more homes in forest areas, and a trend towards warmer and dryer summers due to climate change. Provincial firefighters, municipalities and homeowners now need to account for these heightened wildfire risks in their preparations. Municipalities must ensure that their structural firefighters are trained and equipped appropriately to deal with fires in the wildland urban interface (WUI) as well as the traditional structural fires. It is also important that firefighters are equipped with appropriate trucks to venture onto the wildland. 4x4 trucks with a high clearance or skidders with a tank would be good vehicles to tackle wildfires. Clothing must also be geared towards protecting people from the intensity of wildfire while keeping them comfortable as they spend long days battling fires. Communities and homeowners should make use of WUI planning and education Spot ignition 7 has reduced fatalities and home losses in Australia. Prescribed fire, once a regular occurrence in BC, and an economical treatment for fuels reduction, lost favour in the 90’s due to the negative social impacts of the smoke.