Tucked in the Rockies, the mountain towns of Banff and Canmore are built in a long, narrow valley surrounded by forests of Lodgepole pine, Douglas fir and spruce trees along steep slopes. The Crowsnest Pass, which was spared in the Lost Creek fire in 2003, sits in a low-elevation mountain pass in the middle of mature trees down in southern Alberta. Each community — and dozens of…
The Province is providing a $1-million lift to the Forestry Service Providers Compensation Fund to protect eligible forestry contractors and service providers in the event of licensee insolvency. The one-time grant was announced today by Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson at the Interior Logging Association’s 58th annual conference and trade…
Today, volunteers and planting partners in four communities across Ontario participated in Forests Ontario’s annual Community Planting Weekend. In the spirit of helping to re-green our province, more than 460 attendees planted a total of 2,800 new, native trees in Niagara, Windsor, Kitchener/Waterloo and York Region. Now in its eighth year, the annual Community Planting Weekend was…
Following the release of the COMEX report regarding the proposed construction of two major access roads in sections H west and I on Waswanipi territory, and the certificate of authorization issued for these projects, the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi is satisfied that the approval of these roads in the Broadback Forest will not encroach…
Ever-increasing pressures to clear-cut forests for fibre, biomass and chemical feedstocks tend to ignore their immense ecological and social values. But even as simple production systems, serious challenges to our forests’ sustainability exist. The broad outlines of this story have been known since the 1980s, when precipitous declines of salmon in many of our Atlantic…
As wildfires plague northeastern B.C. and ravage northern Alberta, B.C.’s forests minister is blunt about what the logging industry can expect this year. “We know we face significant challenges over the summer,” said Steve Thomson, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, during a speech to industry representatives attending the Interior Logging Assocation’s annual…
Before firefighting crews are done extinguishing a burning forest, investigators from the B.C. Wildfire Service are already examining the smoking remains behind them, sifting through the ash for clues as to how the fire started. “We prefer to be deployed as soon as possible,” said Ian Douglas, who leads some 50 investigators across B.C. as…
Forest fires popping up along the eastern part of the province are making for smokier air in the region, which has Manitoba health officials reminding people with breathing problems to be on their toes. A major forest fire burned east of Caddy Lake near the Manitoba-Ontario border late this week. It forced cottagers in the Beresford subdivision at Nopiming…
Firefighters started to realize the uniquely destructive nature of the Fort McMurray wildfire when they saw aspen poplar trees instantaneously and loudly explode into fire. As veterans of Alberta’s wildfire wars will tell you, the aspen does not readily burn, not with its green leaves and thick twigs. But in the hottest of fires, gases…
Like people, forest fires have distinct personalities. Some burn with a steady direction and pace. Others trace an angrier path, burning fiercely but briefly. The wildfire class known as the “wooey,” or “wildland urban interface,” is the delinquent of the bunch. These blazes occur when the somewhat predictable elements of a wildfire hit the varied…