For years British Columbians have been warned about the growing threat of forest fires, especially in the "interface," where communities encroach on the woods.
The auditor-general delivered a cautionary -- and, as it turned out, prophetic -- report in 2001 on the fire risk in the "wildland-urban interface"
Then came the 2003 fire season, ranked as one of the worst in provincial history.
Among that year's more than 2,500 wildfires was a record-setting interface blaze that destroyed 238 homes and forced the removal of more than 30,000 people in and around Kelowna.
In the wake of that catastrophic season, the B.C. Liberals appointed Gary Filmon to review the lessons to be learned.
His post-mortem, delivered early the next year, highlighted the buildup of fuels on the forest floor and the increasing number of residential communities at risk from combustion.
He urged the provincial, regional and local governments to -- if you'll pardon the expression -- strike while the iron was hot.
"Governments have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to implement risk reduction policies and legislation while the devastation of Firestorm 2003 is fresh in the public mind and the costs and consequences of various choices are well understood," Filmon wrote. "The time to prepare is now."
The Liberals accepted all 42 of the former Manitoba premier's recommendations and implemented many.
But some -- controlled burning -- were controversial. Others -- remove combustible debris from the forest floor -- were expensive. And the momentum was not long in dissipating.
In 2005, professional foresters came forward with a follow-up analysis -- "the Filmon report was only the first step in addressing a much larger problem that has been quietly growing for decades" -- and a dozen more recommendations to reduce the risk.
Next year it was the turn of the forest practices board. "Fuel levels are increasing significantly, while fuel reduction through wildfires and prescribed fires has declined," the board warned in a special report.
Result: "Ecological changes and increased wildfire risk ... over much of the southern half of the province."
Those concerns brought another itemized to-do list on "managing forest fuels."
This week it was again the turn of the foresters to invoke the sense of deja vu.
"Forest professionals recommend government action to prevent devastating fire season," said the press release from the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals.
But as association leaders explained at a press conference Wednesday morning, not much can be done to reduce the risk this year.
It's already too late to undertake the necessary regimen of logging, debris removal and controlled burning in most threatened areas.
But action now and in the future -- on everything from fuel reduction to management plans -- will reduce the risk in subsequent years.
Association president Paul Knowles and director Dwight Yochim didn't let the public off the hook on the need to engage on the forest fire threat.
People crabbing about controlled burning need to recognize that "a week of smoke" is preferable to the kind of devastation Kelowna experienced four summers ago.
They also need to know that the risk is growing because of everything from climate change to the burgeoning hectares of beetle-killed forests.
Knowles and Yochim were careful to acknowledge how provincial and local governments have taken action on past recommendations.
But more, much more, needs to be done.
For instance, almost 90 communities have put together wildfire protection plans. More than 200 have yet to do so.
The province has compiled an inventory of the areas most at risk of interface fires -- some 1.7 million hectares in all.
Current funding provides only enough money to treat about 7,000 hectares annually, at which pace it would take 250 years to go through the entire inventory even once.
"There isn't enough action being taken to reduce the risk, even over a 10-year period," according to the forestry professionals.
Getting to an effective level wouldn't be cheap. Fuel reduction costs can run between $200 and $400 per hectare, depending on the level of treatment.
Figure on spending about $50 million a year to treat the 1.7 million hectares on the priority list over, say, a 10-year rotation.
But to put that tab into perspective, consider the rising cost of fighting forest fires. The running tab for the past four years is $750 million, with about half those dollars accounted for in the single season that devastated Kelowna.
"This year's season has the potential to be as devastating as the 2003 season," the forest professionals said Wednesday.
Hope they are wrong. If not, the firefighting costs could readily swamp a decade's worth of funding for fuel reduction.Vancouver Sun
