An audit by the Forest Practices Board found that while licensees were fully compliant with the Forest and Range Practices Act, they had several non-compliances with Wildfire Act requirements.
BC Timber Sales (BCTS) had several non-compliance issue under the Forest and Range Practices Act, as well as an unsound practice.
The audit found that BCTS did not meet requirements for construction of a road and three bridges and for not reporting silviculture activities to government.
It also found that plans for the constructed bridge were not adequate.
Kevin Kriese is the Board Chair of the Forest Practices Board…
“Although our recent special investigation found that bridge construction practices are better than what we found in 2014, this audit demonstrates that there is still room for improvement.”
Kriese says two timber-sale licensees did not have a water delivery system on two cutblocks while conducting high-risk activities, which is in non-compliance with the Wildfire Act.
And he says another licensee did not follow the recommendations in a terrain field assessment and only two of 11 timber-sale licensees completed required fire hazard assessments.
“We are also disappointed that we continue to see operators not documenting fire hazard assessments and some licensees not having proper firefighting systems on site as required by the Wildfire Act. Given the risk that wildfire poses to communities, these are not acceptable results. We expect to see improvements to the program as a result of this audit work.”
The audit examined activities in the Quesnel Natural Resource District portion of the larger BCTS Cariboo-Chilcotin Business Area.
This included harvesting 106 cutblocks, constructing over 130 kilometres of road and four bridges, road and bridge maintenance and deactivation, reforestation, wildfire protection and associated planning carried out between June 2018 and June 2019.
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