WHISTLER — Addressing the challenges posed by climate change and wildfires requires society to come together and work collaboratively to find new and innovative approaches, panellists said Tuesday at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region’s annual conference in Whistler.
TRU President Brett Fairbairn and Dr. Mike Flannigan joined B.C. Forests Minister Bruce Ralston and others for a panel discussion called Fire Knows No Borders: Enhancing Disaster Response Capabilities through Technology and Collaboration. Ralston told the crowd the government’s main goal in the face of wildfires is keeping people safe.
“You can’t do that in isolation, as a single agency,” he said. “It (requires) a whole-of-society response. We need to mobilize all elements of society. We need to draw on all available resources to keep communities safe.”
Ralston noted that the summer of 2023 was a tough fire season. Following the end of the season, the government struck a task force and conducted a review, which led to a series of recommendations. One significant recommendation was the need to enhance wildfire training, research and science, leading to BC Premier David Eby’s announcement in April to create a first-of-its-kind training and research institute at Thompson Rivers University.
TRU Wildfire will link research, education, training and innovation to create a new model for interagency partnership and collaboration in wildfire mitigation, response and recovery. It will also work to incorporate Indigenous knowledge about cultural fires with cutting-edge science to produce more comprehensive wildfire mitigation and response strategies.
“Our vision is to have this centre (at TRU) be an educational destination for people from around BC, nationally, and from around the world,” Ralston said.
Fairbairn said TRU’s location in the Interior puts it on the frontlines of the growing threat that wildfires pose to communities. Just this week, an intense wildfire in the Williams Lake River Valley put neighbourhoods close to TRU’s campus in Williams Lake on evacuation alert.
“(TRU) has resolved to take a national leadership role in wildfire science and now, in partnership with the BC Wildfire Service — working with the vision of the (government) of British Columbia — we are looking to develop an institute that brings together research-informed training, academic programs and innovation,” Fairbairn said.
“This is about developing an integrated curriculum of training and education … everything from certificates to post-doctoral research. We want to connect the most fundamental levels of training to the most advanced levels of research.”
TRU has long worked with other Interior universities to further wildfire and climate change research. More recently, the university started working closely with the BC Wildfire Service.
“There is a lot of connecting to be done. We want (TRU Wildfire) to be the hub that supports this work and causes it to happen,” he said. “For us, this challenge is fundamentally about partnerships. Many stakeholders will need to work together in partnership with people in communities and on the front lines.”
Flannigan, who is TRU’s scientific director of the Institute for Wildfire Science, Adaptation and Resiliency, told the conference that research and innovation offer a way forward. His research focuses on developing early warning systems, including finding ways to predict lightning strikes.
Lightning is one of the foremost causes of wildfires, Flannigan said, and the frequency and intensity of lightning-causing storms are increasing with climate change. He added that more forest has burned in BC since 2016 than in the previous 60 years.
“We need multi-pronged approaches (to fight wildfires). There is no silver bullet and there is no quick fix. But we do have options,” he said.
Other panellists included Anthony Pouce Coupe, Emergency Operations manager with the Blueberry River First Nations and Chantal Ritcey, vice-president of Customer Solutions at AltaML, a Calgary-based company specializing in computer software and artificial intelligence.
