Fire Fuel Reduction Work Focuses on Critical Areas
By 250 News
Monday, May 25, 2009 10:10 AM
Prince George, B.C. - The Province has been working on fire fuel mitigation for several years.
“This is not to minimize the work that needs to be done, but a great deal of work has been done, focusing on the high risk areas” says Pat Bell, MLA for Prince George – Mackenzie.
Bell was speaking on the Meisner program this morning on CFIS FM in reaction to a report issued last Friday which said many communities in the B.C. Interior are at significant risk of potentially catastrophic forest fires this summer, because critical prevention work promised by the government has not been done.
Forest Economist Tom Hobby was quoted as saying “We’re sitting on a time bomb." He says there hasn’t been enough done to deal with dead stands of pine beetle killed trees, and that 1.7 million hectares of forest needs to be dealt with.
Bell says over the past five years 95 communities in B.C. have worked on reducing forest fire fuels. “If people have recently travelled through Bear Lake they will ask, where have all the trees gone? That’s because the stand of trees was at a very high risk of burning, so the dead stands have been removed and the grinders have been on site removing materials from the forest floor.”
Bell says there have been 260 projects throughout the province, and some 35 thousand hectares of forest treated in critical areas near communities. The money for the projects is managed by the Union of B.C. Municipalities which was given $37 million dollars to distribute for such projects.
Bell says whether there are dead trees or not, there lies a responsibility among all British Columbians to be careful with fire. “More than half of all fires are human caused, just a few weeks ago, there was the fire at 70 Mile House, which it appears was caused by someone doing burning when they shouldn’t have.” Bell says whether a forest area has been treated or not, everyone needs to be extra careful.
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Posted by: swingline on May 25 2009 11:39 AM
The only reason forest fires are not allowed is all about saving the forest for the lumber and pulp.
Due to the fact that no wild fires have ripped through the forests, there is now a thick, dry layer of tinder just waiting for a spark to explode into a firestorm. The fix is not a matter of putting many dollars towards labour intensive mitigation work. The fix is to let fires go.
Sure, save structures and back burn off roads and make sure of safety. Otherwise, to quote a local media person, "Let 'er rip!"