Woodlot Wildfire Risk Reduction Treatments Planned For The Cariboo

The Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) approved up to $1.7 million to the Woodlot Product Development Council (Woodlots BC) to carry out wildfire risk reduction treatments throughout the Province.

FESBC said there are more than 800 woodlots across BC, many of which have been in operation for more than 40 years with some active for as long as 70 years.

“Approximately 20% of woodlots are located in a Wildland Urban Interface and have a high or extreme wildfire risk.” Gord Chipman, Executive Director Woodlots BC said. “With the Forest Enhancement Society of BC’s investments for new wildfire risk reduction projects, woodlots will have the opportunity to be proactive and take greater strategic action to better protect communities and people.”

Last year (2024) Woodlots BC completed a fuel management treatment totalling 23.7 hectares adjacent to subdivisions at Partrigde Road, Mallard Drive, Quail Road and Crane Road near the community of 150 Mile House.

“We’re currently accessing some woodlots in the Cariboo, Quesnel, Williams Lake, and 100 Mile House.” Chipman said, “There are five we are looking at right now in the Williams Lake area. There was a landscape level plan that was completed in Quesnel that was completed recently and it identified a number of woodlots in the Quesnel so now we’re going through that process of getting out there and determining if they’re suitable or not for treatment.”

Chipman noted that there were a couple of woodlots that have already completed wildfire risk reduction treatments down in 100 Mile House in the last couple of years, and there are some other possibilities down there as well.

From the Woodlot BC perspective, Chipman said they’ve been losing between 5 and ten thousand hectares a year of woodlots throughout the Province because of fires.

“We want to maintain the health and resiliency of our forests. We don’t just want to wait until the fires come, we want to set set up the forests so they can be resilient to a fire, or they can be an area that can be safe to operate in or to suppress a fire. Our whole intention is to be proactive,” Chipman said.

Chipman added that they’ve been working FESBC since 2018 right after the 2017 fire flat that we had in the Cariboo.

“We started then conducting prescriptions to determine how to reduce the risk on the woodlots. Since then we’ve treated 8 different ones in the Cariboo. So we do have a working relationship with the Forest Enhancement Society of BC and we really enjoy working with them,” Chipman said.

Woodlot tenures are unique to BC where public forested land is designated for management by families, small incorporated companies, or First Nations communities who hold licences to manage these areas, often in combination with privately owned land FESBC said.