Dr. Jill Harvey, an incoming TRU professor, will be looking into the historical patterns of wildfire in the B.C. Interior and their impacts on forest health and recovery (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

WILDFIRE AND DROUGHT

TRU fire ecology researcher looks to include historical context, First Nations perspectives into wildfire project

Jun 22, 2021 | 11:36 AM

KAMLOOPS — Forest fires are commonplace in the B.C. Interior.

You don’t have to look back far to see what kind of impact they’ve had on Interior forests. The 2003 fires raged through the North Thompson, devastating towns along the way. More recently, 2017 and 2018 were both historical fire seasons in B.C. with millions of hectares burned.

“It’s been relatively quiet for the past few years, but we’re sitting on the edge of our seats right now, waiting to see what the 2021 fire season’s going to be like,” said Dr. Jill Harvey, an incoming TRU professor who soon will be starting July 1, coming from Edmonton where she works for the Canadian Forest Service. “I’m hoping that a lot of my research will be able to look at some of these past fires and be able to characterize where forests are going and how resilient are forests.”

Dr. Harvey will be taking her students into the forests, both in the Thompson and Cariboo regions, to get a better understanding of the historical pattern of fires in the region.

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“How often fires happened, what areas were affected by those fires, and also engage with local Indigenous communities within the Secwepemc to integrate their perspectives, too, and understand what they’re interested in learning about in terms of historic fire,” said Dr. Harvey.

While her research project doesn’t focus on predicting future wildfire seasons, Harvey says a historical understanding — using tree rings as well as climate data within trees — may very well give a sense of what is to come. However, it’s also about how forests have recovered following past fires.

“Especially in the contexts of increasing drought. That’s one of the things we do know is with climates warming and climates drying in Interior B.C. and elsewhere throughout the world, we can expect there’s going to be more drought, and drought coupled with fires creates conditions we may not have seen in the recent past,” said Harvey.

She says the recovery of forest following a fire depends on the structure of the forest and its vegetation. In particular, she will be visiting the Chilcotin to observe the forests following fires in 2010.

“To see how the forests are regenerating, and to look over the landscape at areas that are wetter and drier — are they generating faster or slower?” she said. “And then hopefully with those insights, we can integrate with forest management to say, ‘Are there some strategies that we can potentially incorporate to support the regeneration of these forests?'”

Dr. Harvey has received $75,000 to conduct the research, which will begin in March.