Hot topic: Wildfires and community protection

You’ve probably noticed that you hear of the negative impacts of wildfires more often that you used to. Climate change continues to play a big role in increasing the severity, the frequency, and the destructive impact of wildfires on communities, on wildlife habitats, and on parks. FPInnovations’ Wildfire Operations Research Program has been developing, delivering, and validating innovative solutions and technologies through independent operational research in order to protect communities, manage wildfires, as well as reduce negative impact of unwanted wildfires.

As part of putting a spotlight on wildfires and Canadian resilience, we start this series with speaking of community resilience and mitigation efforts.

In this series:


  • Community resilience and protection
  • Improving Canada’s wildfire response capabilities
  • Wildfire detection solutions
  • Firefighter safety
  • Harvesting and transformation of burnt wood


Community resilience and fuel management


An experimental burn conducted at the Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental Site.

Community resilience is the ability to prepare for, adapt to, and quickly recover from disasters such as wildfires.

One of the primary tools to protect communities from catastrophic losses and to mitigate the threat of wildfire is fuel management, which is the “modification of a forest structure to reduce forest fuel accumulations available in a wildfire”, according to British Columbia’s Wildfire Service.

According to the Canadian Climate Institute, one of the recommendations of the review of the Fort McMurray fire was the need to increase emphasis on reducing home vulnerability. At the homeowner and community level, this can be achieved by following vegetation management guidelines recommended by FireSmart Canada and FireSmart BC.


A high-intensity experimental burn is conducted to test the protective capacity of a protective building wrap product.

Beyond the homeowner and community vegetation management initiatives, fuel reduction treatments are often conducted in areas of wildland fuels that are adjacent to or intermixed with homes or other infrastructures. These larger fuel reduction treatments are typically planned by fuel management professionals and executed by contractors using specialized motorized hand tools or machinery.


Fuel management techniques for resilient forests

Fuel treatments apply basic fuel reduction principles to reduce the potential for crown fire and to create a more resilient forest. Thinning forest stands with reduction in surface fuel load and removal of ladder fuels are common practices that are used to reduce the potential for crown fire initiation.

FPInnovations’ Wildfire Operations Research group has collaborated with wildfire management agencies and other research agencies to establish research sites and conduct experimental burns to evaluate the effectiveness of the various forest fuel treatments.


Evaluation of effectiveness


Experimental burn to evaluate the effectiveness of mulching as a fuel reduction treatment technique.

At the Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental Site (formerly International Crown Fire Modeling Experiment), FPInnovations has conducted experimental burns to test the effectiveness of stand thinning, stand cleaning, and mulching fuel treatments. Other experimental burns at Red Earth Creek and the Pelican Mountain Fire Smart Fuel Management Research site have evaluated the effectiveness of mulching and stand thinning in black spruce forest stands. The fuel reduction treatments evaluated at these sites are designed for application at a forest stand level in the wildland-urban interface using hand tools or small machinery.

A virtual tour has been created for the Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental Site. One has also been developed for the Pelican Mountain FireSmart Fuel Management Research Site north-east of Slave Lake, Alberta. These tours allow the scientific results to be transferred to the public or between practitioners.  The tours incorporate various media types such as 3D models, 360-degree photos, in-fire video, and scientific reports or InfoNotes for an immersive experience for the user. These virtual tours also allow agencies and partners to showcase past, current, and future research projects and results.

Application of fuel reduction principles to achieve more resilient forests at the landscape level can be achieved through innovative timber harvest and debris management operations that retain a drought and fire-resilient overstory with a reduced fuel loading in the surface fuel layer.


Forest management techniques


Retention harvest to reduce fuel loading in the crown and surface fuel layers.

To evaluate innovative harvesting and debris management techniques as tools to mitigate wildfire, FPInnovations’ Forestry and Wildfire Operations Research groups have collaborated with Forest Enhancement Society of British Columbia (FESBC). A recent FESBC-sponsored research project conducted by FPInnovations evaluated a retention harvest operation in Southern British Columbia in a Kootenay Mix forest environment designed as a wildfire risk reduction adjacent to the community of Nelson, BC.

A selective harvest operation near Quesnel, BC using innovative residue salvage techniques was applied in Central British Columbia in mature Douglas-fir, and FPInnovations’ researchers documented productivity of the operations and the change in forest stand structure and fuel loading. The debris management operation was able to achieve good fibre utilization with transport of saw logs, pellet logs, and hog fuel to accessible local markets.



CONTROLLED FIRES ≠ WILDFIRES


Fire as a fuel management tool

Prescribed burning is the planned and controlled application of fire to a treatment area to achieve multiple resource management objectives including ecosystem restoration, habitat enhancement, silvicultural site preparation and disease eradication (BCWS).

Traditional cultural burning has been practiced by indigenous peoples for thousands of years “based on multiple values … berry production… animal population… disease, grasslands, diseased trees”, as per sxʷuxʷiyaʔ, Penticton Indian Band’s project manager for traditional burns.

Cultural burning practices have been critical to ecosystem management and wildfire mitigation.

Prescribed burning is a cost-effective fuel reduction technique typically applied in the surface fuel layer (litter, woody debris, grasses, and flammable shrubs) and understory layer.  FPInnovations’ Wildfire Operations Research group has conducted a series of underburning operations in a Jack pine fuel environment at the Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental site to reduce the loading of fine fuels (litter, woody debris) in the surface fuel  litter layer. The research objective for this project is to determine optimum conditions (weather and fuel moisture) to achieve the desired fuel consumption objectives without the threat of fire spread to the crown fuel layer and escaped fire resulting from firebrand generation and spot fire development.


CASE EXAMPLES: Sustainable forest management and resilience of communities and forests


[VIDEO] The Forest Will Burn – FPInnovations

In the face of climate changing, natural cycles of forest wildfires are being affected in ways we don’t yet understand. We must therefore prepare our communities in Canada as best we can through improved forest management techniques. Besides, utilizing the byproducts from these sustainable and responsible forest management techniques — namely biomass — can bring about economic opportunities, jobs, cleaner air, energy independence, and local food production. It also reduces reliance on fossil fuels in small communities that must use diesel generators to make electricity. To that effect, FPInnovations produced the video The Forest Will Burn that proposes a novel strategy to mitigate the destructive power of forest wildfires while harnessing the energy for constructive purposes. Reach out to us to learn more about how these strategies can help towards more resilient Indigenous communities.

 

[VIDEO] Wildfire Resiliency – Forest Products Association of Canada [FPAC] with Tolko Industries

Registered Professional Foresters Jack Darney and Jenna Swanson from Tolko Industries explain how sustainable forest management can help mitigate the impacts of climate change in our forests and the challenges created by more frequent, larger-scale wildfires. Learn how they’re working with nature to ensure we have a more resilient, sustainable forest for the long-term.

 

 

Canfor was selected by Parks Canada to undertake a large-scale mechanical fuel reduction program on Pyramid Bench, above the townsite of Jasper in Jasper National Park.

 

 

For more information on these topics, you may reach out to Steven Hvenegaard, Senior Researcher in FPInnovations’ Wildfire Operations Research group, or to Greg Baxter, Senior Researcher in FPInnovations’ Wildfire Operations Research group.

 

 

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