A pilot project to rehabilitate the 2017 Elephant Hill wildfire-affected area at Pressy Lake is underway.
The area is about 600 Hectares and is located East of 70 Mile and West of Little Fort off Highway 24 near Bridge Lake.
The project is being run by Tsideldel Biomass in the Chilcotin and Operation Manager Joe Webster said about a year ago they proposed it to 100 Mile House to help with their burnt fibre issue that they have within the District and it took until now to get it going again.
He said it will probably take five to six months to complete, finishing up in June or July.
“The only issues I’m seeing with it right now is the variability in the burn.” Webster said, “Depending how hot the fire was burning when it went through really is dictating what we’re going to get out of it for fibre to either chip or grind.”
We asked Webster if any future projects like this are planned for the Cariboo in other areas that were impacted by wildfires.
“We need to finish what we’re doing here to see if it’s viable to continue beyond this pilot project. What I’m seeing is we should be continuing, we could continue, again, depending on how hot the fire was burning. The idea going forward is, as you know the Forest Industry isn’t in a great shape right now and all the burns aren’t helping the situation any. Our goal would be to help the secondary manufacturers with the fibre and create employment as we do it especially in the 100 Mile District. We’re already creating jobs with just the pilot project but our goal would be to have long term employment for people that may be laid off from the primary manufacturer,” Webster said.
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