Better information seen as key to fighting fires
Man leading review of 2017 fire, flood response touring province
Greater use of local knowledge and high-tech mapping systems could help limit the size and severity of future wildfires, George Abbott believes.
And prescribed burning — which has dropped off in recent years in part because of concerns about air quality — should be used more widely to better fireproof forests near populated areas, says Abbott, who is leading a review of the province’s response to last year’s fires and floods.
More funding for the mechanical thinning of dense woods near urban areas, along with greater cleanup of debris on the forest floor, could also lessen the chance of a repeat of the devastating 2017 fire season, Abbott says.
“There’s no one thing that is the perfect recipe,” Abbott said Wednesday. “There’s several elements in the prescription that can work.”
More than 65,000 British Columbians were temporarily displaced from their homes last year by flooding and fire, with the total cost of responding to the disasters put at more than $600 million.
During his tour of B.C. communities so far, Abbott estimated he had spoken directly to more than 1,000 people about the province’s emergency response, and the commission had received thousands more submissions online.
“We’ve heard many times that BC Wildfire Service needs to make greater use of local and Indigenous knowledge,” Abbott said during an interview during one of the commission’s final stops, in Kelowna.
“People would reference crews from somewhere else in Canada, or even the world, who were suddenly finding themselves in the rural Cariboo and not having the slightest idea of the nuances in the landscape,” Abbott said.
A form of 3D imaging technology called lidar (light detection and ranging) could be used, at an estimated cost of about $135 million, to provide a highly accurate and detailed map of the entire B.C. landscape that would be useful in fighting fires, Abbott said.
“Individual forestry companies have mostly gone to lidar to understand their own cutting areas, but B.C. as a province has not invested widely in that technology,” Abbott said. “We need to have that extraordinarily powerful tool in our tool chest even though it costs a lot of money.”
Among other things, a lidar-generated map reveals current soil conditions, subtle land contours, tree types, tree sizes and density.
“All of these things can better inform decision-making in firefighting,” Abbott said.
The most common complaint about the province’s fire response, Abbott said, has been the lack of timely and accurate information from official sources about a fire’s condition and threat level.
Providing that information is more important than ever, he said, given how quickly false statements and rumours can spread on social media.
“Unless you manage a contribution to social media, any gap in information will be filled with misinformation, and there was lots of that last year,” he said.
Inaccurate reports about looting in evacuated areas, and even the entire destruction of towns, filled evacuees with “great alarm and distress,” Abbott said.
A final report from Abbott and fellow commissioner Maureen Chapman will be produced by April 30.