Williams Lake Community Forest focuses on fir-beetle, wildfire mitigation and education

The Williams Lake Community Forest continues its efforts to remove Douglas-fir beetle impacted timber on its Flat Rock Block. “We’ve taken out 200 truckloads over the winter,” said Hugh Flinton who along with Kent Watson of C&P Management Group took over the management role of the community forest on Dec. 31, 2017. They replaced Ken Day who recently retired from the UBC Alex Fraser Research Forest and had managed the community forest. Douglas-fir bark beetle wood has been taken out of the Flat Rock block near Esler entirely this winter. The area escaped last summer’s wildfires, although in the community forest’s Big Lake block there were three small fires, which were put out very quickly with the help of the Big Lake Volunteer Fire Dept.