B.C. communities preparing for wildfire season with prescribed burns

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]A walk through the forest, but not just look at the trees.

[00:00:05]>> There's some slash piles up in the back end up here. Uh we'll walk up around those as well, too. Really well constructed.

[00:00:10]>> These Kimberley residents are learning how prescribed burns and fuel reduction can help protect their community.

[00:00:17]>> It's not going away. We're going to see with climate change longer burning seasons. We're going to see bigger fires.

[00:00:24]>> As wildfire season approaches, communities across BC are looking for ways to reduce risk before fire switch homes and infrastructure.

[00:00:33]>> You know, when you think of what the what damage a fire can do and how quickly it can spread and we live so close to the forest, like I said, uh I I I am concerned about fire.

[00:00:46]>> Wildland fire ecologist Bob Gray says decades of fire suppression have changed forests in the region.

[00:00:52]>> That'll create more fuel. That will make the landscape more vulnerable for large high you know, high severity fires.

[00:01:01]So, if we want to break that pattern, then we have to thin a lot more and we have to shift the species to those that are best adapted to drought and fire.

[00:01:13]>> Officials say burns only go ahead under approved weather, wind, and fuel conditions.

[00:01:19]>> One day was smokey and I think it was during the prescribed burn. So, I felt that it was minimal.

[00:01:24]>> It It's a big consideration, especially when we're doing wildfire risk reduction work around communities. The The last thing we want to be doing is is is causing kind of harm or or having undue impacts to residents because of smoke.

[00:01:38]>> Away from the trail, UBC Okanagan is developing a national prescribed fire training program. The program director says it mean to empower communities.

[00:01:47]>> I think what it does is it creates this opportunity then to use it more effectively and consistently rather than just kind of like one-offs where we're relying, you know, really heavily just on BC Wildfire Service to do it.

[00:02:00]>> The program is expected to be up and running in the fall.

[00:02:03]BC Wildfire Service says prescribed and cultural burns with indigenous people in the interior are also part of a broader shift in how communities understand fire.

[00:02:14]>> It's not new. It's a relationship with fire that's evolving. I think that maybe took a backseat for many years. Um that's coming back to the forefront.

[00:02:24]>> Officials say as weather warms this season, prescribed burning will end until later in the fall when temperatures cool.

[00:02:30]>> We in the fall coming up.

[00:02:32]>> Amber Wang, CBC News, Kimberley.