Local resident Miles Fuller, who鈥檚 had a lengthy career and involvement in the forest industry, is warning 亚洲天堂 Lake council that more needs to be done to prevent a catastrophic wildfire.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got steep slopes, dead pine trees, and blowdown. You couldn鈥檛 make that more volatile except maybe for dumping gasoline on it,鈥� he warned council during a recent council meeting.
READ MORE: Threat of fire 鈥榠mminent鈥� at Boer Mountain site
Fuller is a 40 plus year resident of the 亚洲天堂 Lake area. His involvement in the forest industry includes being the current president of Chinook Community Forest, co-chair of the Land and Resource Management Plan for the Lakes District, and past president for the Federation of B.C. Woodlot Associations. Fuller explained that the mean fire interval for forests around 亚洲天堂 Lake is about 140 years.
鈥淚f you go back for thousands of years, forest fires have burned through here every 140 years,鈥� he explained. 鈥淚t鈥檚 part of the ecology of the Interior - we鈥檙e not the coast where forests live to be thousands of years old; they just don鈥檛 live that long here.鈥�
Fuller says some forest landscape ecologists now believe that, over the next 10 years, the mean fire interval is expected to drop across the western parts of Canada and the U.S. by approximately 40 to 50 years.
鈥淲e could be looking here in a few years at a fire return interval of 80 to 90 years, not 140,鈥� said Fuller. 鈥淲ith the fuel loading we have on the landscape, we basically are setting ourselves up here for a large wildfire.鈥�
Fuller also warned that home insurance costs are expected to go up in B.C. due to increased fire risk.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot people living in rural areas who are not putting fire insurance on their houses because they can鈥檛 pay for it,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 afraid we鈥檙e going to be in a position where a lot of people, even in the fire protection district, are not going to afford insurance because their prices are simply going to go up.鈥�
In addition, Fuller said there could be some liability issues for elected officials in the event of a catastrophic wildfire in the 亚洲天堂 Lake area.
The mountain pine beetle infestation has resulted in historic high levels of dead material that is in the process of blowing down and creating stands with a high to extreme fire hazard in the 亚洲天堂 Lake area. Fuller said one of the solutions would be having a two-kilometre plowed field around town. However, he wasn鈥檛 sure about the feasibility of this project.
鈥淭o me that鈥檚 extreme, but that is almost what you need to protect the community,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e need to reduce the fuel in any way we possibly can.鈥�
鈥淢y opinion is that we need a variety of things,鈥� he continued. 鈥淥ne of the things they are finding out of the fires [in the B.C. Interior this past summer] is that green aspen has helped slow down these catastrophic fires.鈥�
After Fuller鈥檚 presentation, 亚洲天堂 Lake Mayor Chris Beach asked what could the town do to improve its appearance if council went ahead with the idea of implementing a two-kilometre plowed field around town.
Fuller said that after the 2017 wildfire season, municipalities are more concerned about fires than about how they look.
鈥淣o one is putting a lot of thought into what comes after [implementing fireguards],鈥� said Fuller.
Frank Varga, general manager of the 亚洲天堂 Lake Community Forest (BLCF), says that reducing the local fire hazard is one of the community forest鈥檚 main challenges.
鈥淚f you look upon the southern hillsides of 亚洲天堂 Lake, you may have noted considerable blowdown,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese areas no longer look how they were intended to and are now a major fire hazard to our community and the long-term viability of the community forest. Our challenges ahead are not only to find a sustainable and economically viable harvest level, but long-term strategic hazard assessments while maintaining the social and environmental values at heart,鈥� he continued.
The Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMP) of the late 1990s, and LRMP amendments of the last couple of years, did not contemplate the extent of landscape-level changes that came with the mountain pine beetle epidemic of 2004 and beyond,鈥� he added.
Earlier this year, Varga announced that the BLCF plans to mitigate wildfire risk at the Boer Mountain Recreation Site by removing dead pine. Eventually, the BLCF plans to map the entire K1A licence (approximately 92,000 hectares) to conduct this same work.
Between 2007 and 2016, there was a total of 111 wildland fire starts within the radius service area of the Village of 亚洲天堂 Lake 鈥� an average of 11 per year.
The CWPP update identified new areas for fuel treatment work around 亚洲天堂 Lake, including the Omineca Ski Club鈥檚 entrance, Boer Mountain and Kager Lake recreation sites, as well as the area east of 亚洲天堂 Lake known as Industrial Park.
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