The thing is that you can expect more forest fires. Each year the number of fires are increasing. Due to lack of snow cover and winter snow falls, spring has a increase in flood levels , while before the snow melts could last to may/june; keeping temps low and the land watered. Now by june its hot and getting hotter with less rain coming over the mountains from the sea.
This deforestation by fire, will leave the land bare of plants and trees to hold the soil in place, increasing soil loss during rain and flood times.
There needs to be more volunteers in every community in the interior of BC to fight fires as they spring up. There needs to be more professional forest fire fighters and also Military aid from the Canadian Armed Forces, at least 200 per province. Places that have volunteer fire fighters, usually have limits to how many volunteers they can have in a certain areas. This would need to be increased during fire season.
But what is really needed is volunteers that can be called up at a moments notice, to either be first response and or back up to the first response.
Of course there are problems with this like:
1. Training
2. PPE
3. Liability
4. Availability - People can't get take off their job at a moments notice and still have a job the next day to be first on a forest fire scene or can they?
5. Health- smoke from fires is bad for lungs, the best protection is a Air Pack with compressed air. Not sure if filters work for a smoke mask??
The problem is our society. Anybody doing anything wants to get paid. The other problem is the government rules and bureaucrats limits people who want to help because of liability. They would need something to protect volunteers with a Fire ACT that limits liability, but still looks after people if they get hurt on a call to forest fire.
Part of the problem is that BCWS sends in aircraft to assessing the fire…..which may have just started.
A person in an office decides the fire has just started, which half the time is under 10 acres, and looks at the forecast for the next week, and decides it’s just a small uncontained fire , that is no real threat, and 100 years of fuel needs to be cleaned up anyways.
the fire is allowed to grow, and crews are sent in at a later time to help control it…….but by two p.m. that day, the interior winds enlarge that fire to 50-100 acres, depending on fuel supply.
The policy then is utilized to burn off built up fuel on the forest floor……and back burns to direct the fire….becoming what we have now, …
a total shitshow.
Ten years ago, crews where deployed almost immediately to control a manageable interface…..the problem with that is fuel build up grows over those decades…..and threatens homes and livelihood.…..and your absolutely right…
Liability has become a major factor in the red tape as well….the days are over you can just send almost any able bodied person into a fire, due to possible legal consequences.
Afterwards the burn areas are so large the ecosystem is so altered ,that living in that environment becomes a challenge to land owners and businesses…..to the point of the local economy is affected dramatically, the wildlife is altered, and aquifers change.
Then Forestry comes in and plants fast growing seedlings to stabilize the ground structure…..and the new plantings burn in a grass fire, if they aren’t choked out first from over abundant Natural plant life, consuming all the natural water .
