A two-year project to reduce the risk of wildfire west of Clinton is almost finished.
Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. operations manager Ray Raatz says fuel mitigation has been done in three areas near Big Bar Lake, totalling 50-90 hectares in size. He says all that’s left to do is slash pile burning.
He says some of the forest stands treated there were “very similar” to stands that burned in the Elephant Hill wildfire, which charred 192,000 hectares of land in 2017, in the Thompson Plateau and southern Cariboo.
“It was really around getting stands that were in that area significantly reduced for wildfire risk. That involved thinning out trees, pruning trees, doing a whole lot of piling of fuels that were on the ground and getting them out of the bush. And so what you end up with is a much cleaner forest floor, and a much more fire-resilient stand,” Raatz says.
“Every stand is different, so the treatments that we need to do can vary. But the bottom line is to get these stands into a condition where, if a fire were to come, it would significantly reduce the intensity of the fire, and the rate of spread of any fire.”
He says fire breaks have been created as well, which would give crews a point to work from if there were ever a wildfire in that area.
“It’s critical work. A lot of it is done adjacent to communities and high-value infrastructure. But there’s lots of opportunities to do more.”
FESBC, which is provincially funded, has provided about $625,000 for the work to be done, by Zanzibar Holdings and the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation. Raatz says most of the crews who have worked there are members of the First Nation.
The society is also hoping more provincial funding becomes available for future wildfire mitigation projects. Raatz says there are lots of areas identified that could be treated, beyond what the society is already doing.
“There’s lots of areas that have been identified for potential treatment. And there’s employment opportunities for all of these projects for sure. There’s significantly more area to do, it’s just a matter of funding being available.”
In the past several years, FESBC has funded more than 100 wildfire mitigation projects across B.C., including about a dozen in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District in places like Black Pines, Clinton and Logan Lake.
(Photo: FESBC)
