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Me7 tsertsrép re nekéct : me tsecéntem re tmicw-kt

Preston, Georgina

University of British Columbia

Indigenous lands in interior British Columbia (BC), Canada are being impacted by increasingly large, fast-moving, high-severity wildfires due to climate change and an increase in vegetation (fuels) resulting from two centuries of settler-colonial land management. Despite disruptions from settler-colonial laws and policies, Stswecem'c Xget'tem First Nation (SXFN) has stewarded their Traditional Territory in south-central BC since time immemorial, including through frequent application of surface fire. SXFN communities have been repeatedly threatened by wildfires throughout the last two decades, inspiring SXFN to partner with the University of British Columbia in 2021 to quantify crown fire risk in their wildland-urban interface and explore forest stewardship solutions. I quantified fuel loads and potential fire behaviour in unceded dry SXFN forests with BC government legal objectives for mule deer winter range (MDWR) and old growth management (OGMA), then explored wildfire mitigation options through simulated fuel treatments. High fuel loads surrounding SXFN communities yielded predictions for high likelihood of crown fire under the 50th, 70th, 90th, and 97.5th percentiles of fire weather. Fuels data were altered to simulate fuel treatments that paired pruning and surface fuel abatement with varying intensities of thinning-from-below; two types of thinning complied with BC legal objectives for MDWR and OGMA, and another intensively thinned the smallest trees. I remodelled fire behaviour using the simulated fuel treatments and 90th percentile fire weather data and found that fuel treatments that complied with legal objectives for MDWR and OGMA reduced predictions of active crown fire but maintained high likelihood of intense passive crown fire. Comparatively, the intensive-thinning fuel treatment which would require an exemption to the legal objectives had the most efficacy in reducing crown fire predictions, but predictions for intense passive crown fire still dominated. These findings indicate that legal objectives for MDWR and OGMA should be critically revaluated, as they limit vital fuel reduction close to SXFN communities. Of utmost importance is that SXFN be able to lead the adaptive stewardship needed in these forests by using both local knowledge and western science. This work is urgent; it is not if, but when SXFN communities will next be threatened by wildfire.

Text

2024-06-25

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88516

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/