What influences community engagement in wildfire preparedness initiatives in British Columbia?
New report available [link to PDF].
Results from a survey conducted just prior to the 2017 fire season show that BC communities are aware of, and very concerned about current and future threats from wildfire in the woodland-urban interface (WUI). There is consensus that all agencies (municipal, regional, provincial, federal, and First Nations governments, industry and business, and individual homeowners) should be doing more to reduce wildfire risk. Nevertheless, not all communities have developed a wildfire protection plan. Barriers are greatest for communities with fewer than 5000 citizens and many First Nations communities, where engagement may be enhanced if issues of sustained funding, capacity and support are adequately addressed. We recommend that solutions to enable community action should prioritize the most vulnerable communities and must account for cultural differences.
Citation: Daniels, L.D., S.M. Hagerman and S. Ravensbergen. 2018. Wildfire Prevention and Fuels Management in the Wildland-Urban Interface: BC Community Perceptions. Report to the Union of BC Municipalities, First Nations’ Emergency Services Society, BC Community Forest Association and BC Wildfire Service. May 2018. 30pp.
Next steps: The survey reported above was conducted in the months leading up to the unprecedented 2017 wildfire season in BC. Our ongoing research thus includes two additional steps:
Follow up survey to involve a greater number of communities, and to explore post-2017 levels of awareness, perceptions of risk and community-generated recommendations for action (summer 2018)
Interviews with community members about their experiences, successes and solutions to barriers they have experienced (fall and winter 2018).
The intention of both activities is to co-develop solutions to overcome barriers to wildfire prevention in the the WUI.
Acknowledgements: We thank the 77 respondents for sharing their community experiences and insights. This work is supported by a 2017 Wall Solutions Initiative grant from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC.
Project partners are the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM), First Nations’ Emergency Services Society (FNESS), BC Community Forest Association (BCCFA) and BC Wildfire Service (BCWS). The UBCM, FNESS and BCWS are members of British Columbia’s Provincial Fuel Management Working Group, which manages the Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative (SWPI). We thank UBCM, FNESS, and BCCFA for sharing the invitation for this survey to their members via newsletters and their websites.
For constructive feedback on the draft survey, we thank the following leaders of key agencies involved in various aspects of preventative wildfire management in BC:
Jeff Eustache, Forest Fuel Manager, First Nations’ Emergency Services Society
Danyta Welsh, Policy & Programs Officer, Union of British Columbia Municipalities
Peter Hisch, Fuel Treatment Specialist, BC Wildfire Service (retired January 2017)
Al Neal, Provincial Specialist, Ecological Restoration BC
Greg Anderson, Executive Director (2016-7), Forest Enhancement Society of BC
Dave Clarke, Executive Director and Tim Ryan, Chair (2014-2017), Forest Practices
Board of British Columbia
