Burning Questions: The quest to protect B.C.’s woodlands from climate change

There’s plenty we can do to make our timber supply and the communities that depend on it more resilient to catastrophic blazes, say foresters. Erik Leslie… manager of the Harrop-Procter Community Forest near Nelson. …on July 27, 2017, after six weeks of rainless, hot, drought-like conditions, lightning struck. …The obvious takeaway from these back-to-back devastating seasons is that B.C. faces a future of increased forest fire frequency and intensity. But a growing number of land managers and foresters are starting to look beyond that truism by calling out another uncomfortable truth: conventional forestry has not only compounded the risk of forest fires, it also isn’t nearly dynamic enough to address climate change’s toll on forest health. “The question is, how are we managing our forests in light of climate change? I really don’t think we’re ahead of the game on this,” says Jeff Mycock, chief forester for West Fraser Timber.