Webinar: When Fire Meets Water

Please join us on Monday, June 16th 12:00 – 1:30 PM PST on Zoom (register here) for a lively panel discussion! This is the first of two webinars as a part of our Fire Files series. Thank you to the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) for your support in making these webinars happen.

In British Columbia, the four most severe fire seasons on record have occurred in the past eight years. During this time, the reality of fire as a landscape-scale process has become increasingly evident. What were once localized impacts and costs have become regional or even national-scale catastrophes, affecting society as a whole. 

Managing fire risk is complicated not only by the scale of the fires but also by the fact that local conditions–such as topography, land use, and weather–are the primary factors influencing fire behavior. Discussions on how to manage fire risk at large scales are advancing rapidly in coastal BC, where communities are frequently located within or near the wildland-urban interface where fire risk is high. 

Join our panel as they consider the intersections between social (local) and environmental priorities (regional) through watershed planning. Key elements of this discussion include:

• Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!
• Source water protection: What is it and why should fire be a key consideration?
• The fire-forest-water nexus: Healthy watersheds as a potential solution (including the role of beavers)
• Landscape thinking and jurisdictional opportunities

This discussion will be moderated by Dr. Ruth Waldick, Ph.D., lead scientist of Transition Salt Spring’s Climate Adaptation Research Lab (CARL). 

We are pleased to be introduce the expert panel that will be leading this conversation:

Andrea Barnett, MPP (she/her)
Wildfire Project Manager, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance

Craig Stewart, MSc (he/him)
Vice-President, Climate Change and Federal Issues, Insurance Bureau of Canada

Oliver M. Brandes, PhD (he/him), 
Co-director, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance

François-Nicolas Robinne, PhD (he/him)
Forest Hydrologist, Government of Alberta