Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School in 100 Mile House hosted the ‘Era of Mega Fire’ event last night, educating the public on why the fires happened and how you can prevent them.
The event started with a 60 minute educational film featuring Dr. Paul Hessburg, a research ecologist from the United States, followed by Bob Gray for his in person presentation.
Gray, a fire ecologist from Chilliwack, details the main talking points of the presentation.
“We’re in a very very difficult situation right now. There are a number of things we can do to bring resilience back to the landscape, it’s going to take a lot of work. The key things are fire smarting homes and structures, increase in prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, and focusing on bringing resiliency back to the forest.”
His presentation also touched on future climate predictions, the recovery process for the fires, and what state the forest and fuels are in.
Gray says the current estimation for the 2017 fires is around $550 million and that the indirect and additional costs are estimated to run 32 times the amount of the suppression costs.
The Era of Mega Fires event will run again tonight at 7 in Williams Lake at the Gibraltar Room.