VANCOUVER — Wildfire fighting and forest management decisions are potentially being hampered by inaccurate government data that misrepresents forest fuel loads in British Columbia's Interior, a new study has found. The B.C.
VANCOUVER — Wildfire fighting and forest management decisions are potentially being hampered by inaccurate government data that misrepresents forest fuel loads in British Columbia's Interior, a new study has found.
Understanding the mix of flame-stoking grasses, branches and dead trees in the forest is crucial to managing risk, because those fuels are the only factor that people can change in the short term to influence fire behaviour, it says. Improving fuel-type mapping willalso help researchers and wildfire officials understand how fuels interact with today's environmental conditions, and with each other, to influence fire behaviour, Baron says.
They found "no suitable match" between national system's data and field observations in 58 per cent of the one-hectare plots. A further 42 per cent were "partially suitable," the paper says. It was also designed primarily to inform fire suppression in boreal forests and uses 16 fuel types to represent conditions throughout Canada, Baron says.
In an emailed statement, the Forests Ministry says the BC Wildfire Service is working with Baron and other researchers to improve fuel classification.
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