NRRM to draft letter of support for overwintering wildfire project

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Smoke from the Etcho Creek wildfire in the Fort Nelson fire zone. (BCWS) — Smoke from the Etcho Creek wildfire in the Fort Nelson fire zone, which is the result of overwintering activity. (BCWS)

FORT NELSON, B.C. — The Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) has agreed to support research into how best to deal with and mitigate overwintering wildfires.

At the September 2nd council meeting, the municipality voted in favour of drafting a letter of support for Northern Fire WoRx — a private fire management company in the region — to conduct some research in a series of 1.2-hectare areas that receive “significant overwinter blow down.”

Blow down — fallen trees in areas impacted by wildfires — has caused significant issues for firefighters in the region, with the BC Wildfire Service reporting struggling with it earlier this year.

According to an email to NRRM staff from company founder Sonja Leverkus, the Ministry of Forests requested her company acquire a letter of support from the municipality to carry out the research.

Leverkus says the research will see prescribed burns conducted in various 1.2-hectare areas that receive significant blow down, in an effort to reduce the amount of fuel available to overwintering fires.

“This research will investigate: ecological impacts from overwinter blow down, fuel type modelling, fire behaviour and management considerations for future fire events in overwinter blow down, community protection and firefighter safety,” Leverkus’ email reads.

The research is reportedly “mostly self-funded,” although Leverkus claims she’s in the process of applying for national research grants for the project through her position as an adjunct professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

NRRM mayor Rob Fraser vocally supported the research at the September 2nd meeting.

“I think there’ll be some good information coming from there,” Fraser said. “I mean, it’s starting to become apparent that all this blow down out there, if it can’t be salvaged, needs to either find a home of some type or it needs to be burned.”

The council ultimately voted unanimously to create a letter of support for the research project.