Parts of B.C. remain at risk of summer wildfires, floods: expert

A wildfire burning near Fort St. John has already scorched 545 hectares but an expert on forests said that’s not a bad thing at this point in the season.

“A little bit of fire in the cool part of the spring, before it gets hot and dry, that’s actually a good thing in that landscape right now,” said Lori Daniels, a UBC forest ecology professor.

There have been 152 wildfires in B.C. so far in 2022, down considerably from the 277 the province had already seen by this time last year.

But Daniels is still worried about what summer could bring, despite a cold and wet spring in many parts of the province.

“I have serious concerns about the southern interior of B.C., the Cariboo, the Okanagan, right across the south into the Rocky Mountain trench,” she said. “These are the areas that although it’s been cooler temperatures, its been dry.”

B.C. has already done prescribed burns in some parts of the province, but Daniels believes there should be more. She said a controlled burn under the right conditions, that doesn’t endanger communities, helps guard against larger fires in the future.

Another factor heightening fire risk, according to Daniels, is the pine beetle, which has affected 19 million hectares of forest in B.C.

“In places where mountain pine beetle had tremendous impact, there’s a lot of dead trees. Dead trees, as they dry and fall to the ground, increase fuel loads,” she explained.

Daniels also said that rules on clearing debris while harvesting logs from trees impacted by the mountain pine beetle have created a dangerous situation in our woods.

“What we didn’t realize when we made those choices in the early 2000’s was we were creating a bonfire in the forest. We were leaving behind all those fine fuels,” she said.

2021 was one of the worst wildfire seasons in B.C. history with 8,700 square kilometres of land scorched.

A fast-moving wildfire destroyed almost the entire Village of Lytton burned and more than 200 people remain displaced as clean-up continues nearly a year after the blaze

Daniels said that the fires from last summer could make some communities, like Merritt and Princeton, more vulnerable to flooding this spring as the snow piles deeper without trees.

“Instead of soaking into the ground to feed a generation of trees, it’s going to run off into stream in larger amounts and create erosion and contribute potentially to landslides and washouts,” she explained.

"We saw it after the 2017 fires. We saw it after the 2018 fires. I think we will see if after the 2021 fires.”