Disaster, Forests

Focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation

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The Cortes Forestry General Partnership is currently focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation strategies. 

While none have been large, there were recent fires on West Redonda, Read, Quadra and Sonora Islands.

“It’s highly possible that we can have a fire here,” said General Manager Mark Lombard.  

Lombard has been working on wildfire and fuel mitigation strategies for Cortes Island. 

He helped SRD Protective Services Coordinator Sean Koopman revise the Cortes Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

They identified four areas in the community forest as top priorities for fuel treatment projects. 

Two, in the Anvil Lake area and the Carrington/Coulter Bay areas, are commercially viable as logging projects.

Map of historic fires from Cortes Islands 2011 Wildfire protection plan – SRD website

“That’s part of the reason that they’re a priority. Also, one of them has a really thick stand with a lot of the hemlock dying out. It’s a little bit of a fire hazard in that area. We’re going to do some small patches  in areas that are really heavy with mistletoe hemlock, and then do some thinning in the rest of the areas,” explained Lombard. 

Both the literature and people Lombard has spoken to, say that one way to do wildfire mitigation is to have a mosaic of age classes and types. So that it’s not just one homogenous forest where all the trees are the same age and species. 

Proposed fuel mitigation area around Cortes Recycling depot – Slide from the 2022 Cortes Forestry General Partnership AGM

The proposed projects in Squirrel Cove and around the Cortes Island Recycling Centre are not commercially viable and depend on funding. 

Lombard said that part of the Squirrel Cove area is “ full of dying hemlock and a real tinderbox area.”

“We won’t be able to sell any logs from those projects, but will make them available as firewood.”

After the General Partnership’s AGM, Lombard emailed some tentative thoughts about scheduling. If they can get access to the north island, VON2 will be the next project. If not, it will be the thinning project at Anvil Lake.

“ I think everybody also knows that if you have a major catastrophic canopy fire, it doesn’t matter what you do. It’s still going to spread.  What we’re talking about is slowing down  or stopping small or medium forest fires,” said Lombard.

Wildfires on Cortes Island 1950-2008 – from the old Cortes Island Wildfire Protection Plan

There has not been a large-scale forest fire on Cortes Island since at least 1950. The two largest were somewhere between 4 and 10 hectares. 

However as global temperatures continue to rise, wildfires will get a lot larger and more frequent throughout British Columbia. No one knows what this will mean on Cortes Island. 

Top image credit: logs thinned in the Carrington Bay area – Slide from the 2022 Cortes Forestry General Partnership AGM

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One thought on “Focusing on wildfire fuel mitigation”

  1. I remember last year on the international news there was a story, I believe from Italy! that some people sought refuge in a lake but died because of lack of oxygen. The story was that a small lake surrounded by burning forest used all the oxygen from lakes.

    Is this true, and if it is, would Hague Lake and Gunflint Lake be safe to go into or not?

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