Fire and fuel management

Current wildfire trends, both in B.C. and Canada, show increased impacts to values from unwanted wildfires and associated suppression costs, increased threats to communities and infrastructure and increased losses of natural resources including mid-term timber supply. This is being driven by the effects of climate change, the mountain pine beetle fuel type and increasing community, critical infrastructure, and natural resource development on the forested land base. 

Fire and fuel management is a holistic approach that incorporates integrated land management, in which fire regimes and effects, values at risk, and multiple resource use activities are considered. These include fuel management treatments to achieve a stated reduction in wildfire risk or other objectives.

The BC Wildfire Service is currently moving forward with the integration of fire and fuel management as a key part of its mandate.

Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis (PSTA)

The PTSA is designed to consistently assess and map potential wildfire threats to values across the landscape (including communities, infrastructure, and natural resources) and to integrate different aspects of wildfire hazard and risk.

Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis

Wildland urban interface (WUI)

The WUI is where combustible wildland fuels are found adjacent to homes, farm structures or other outbuildings. In BC, structure densities are used to define the boundary of the WUI for management planning purposes.

Wildland Urban Interface Risk Class Maps

Fuel management

Fuel management involves the modification of a forest structure to reduce forest fuel accumulations available in a wildfire. The goal for managing hazardous vegetation fuels on the landscape is to create fire resilient ecosystems.

Fuel Management