‘There’s a good time for fires’
Controlled burn to take place in Cape Breton Highlands National Park
A prescribed burn to take place in the Warren Lake area of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park this week is the result of years of planning and expertise from across Canada coming together, its incident commander says.
Parks Canada is conducting a controlled fire at Warren Lake that was due to begin as early as Monday evening, weather permitting, and then continue for up to another two to three days.
Planning for the burn has been underway for three years, incident commander Jed Cochrane said in a phone interview.
A great deal of preparations went into planning the fire itself in the last couple of days leading up to it, including bringing in gear to the site.
“Crews are out there today (Monday) along with a helicopter and they’re deploying gear along the perimeter,” Cochrane said.
If everything went well and the weather conditions allowed for it, some ignition could have occurred Monday evening, he said, adding it was more likely to begin today, with the bigger part of the burn taking place on Wednesday.
The prescribed fire is intended to help maintain and enhance the amount of red oak and white pine in the national park. Cochrane said the planning begins with park ecologists noticing changes in the park ecosystems, noting there is a recognition that they are fire-dependent.
“Historically, they’ve had fire move through the forest and that fire shapes the vegetation communities that we see — the trees especially and ultimately the habitat for animals and plants,” he said.
In the Cape Breton Highlands’ Acadian forest, a shortage of red oak and white pine regeneration was noted and attributed to a lack of fire. Cochrane noted that it wasn’t always recognized that fire can be good for an ecosystem and the emphasis was on fire suppression.
“There’s a good time for fires and a bad time for fires,” he said, nothing they still have to fight fires to protect infrastructure, homes and people.
“We walk that tightrope with respect to when we allow fire and when we don’t allow fire.”
In the case of the prescribed
burn, expertise from throughout Parks Canada’s operations has been brought in to take part — Cochrane himself is a fire ecologist in British Columbia with the Rocky Mountain National Parks.
The provincial Department of Natural Resources and the Emergency Management Office have also participated in the project.
“At the end of the day we want to make sure that we’re safe, that’s always our number one priority, people and infrastructure is number one for us, and that we achieve the objectives that we want — we want the right conditions and the right fire behaviour,” he said.
Planning includes looking at possible boundaries for the fire, how it will be contained, what resources will be needed on site and what other work needs to be done ahead of time. They also devise the “prescription,” which sets of the conditions needed for the day of the burn, such as wind direction and temperature.
“That’s all to ensure safety, so that we don’t lose this prescribed fire, we keep it within the boundaries that we want,” Cochrane said.
The plan is then peer-review by other experts in prescribed fires and an environmental assessment is conducted.
Fire management specialists and firefighters from Parks Canada will be on-site and local volunteer fire departments have been notified.
Site preparation can also include using chainsaws to remove forest fuels around the perimeter of the burn area.
The Cabot Trail and Cape Breton Highlands National Park will remain open to the public. But, to ensure public safety, access to the Broad Cove Mountain Trail, Warren Lake Trail, Warren Lake Road, and Mary Ann Falls Road will be closed prior to and during the fire. Smoke and a helicopter may be visible along the Cabot Trail.
Once the prescribed fire is completed, regular monitoring will be conducted and any hot spots will be extinguished.