Fire risk reduction in the Coastal Douglas-fir biogeoclimatic zone: A practitioner’s report

A note about using this document

This report is a synthesis of the expertise shared by the community of practice, who under the leadership of Transition Salt Spring, have assembled around the issue of fire risk in the Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) biogeoclimatic zone. It centres on the perspectives shared during a virtual workshop that took place in February 2023, and an in-person debrief that occurred a few days later on Salt Spring Island. It is intended to be an informative resource for a variety of practitioners, land holders, and decision makers living and working within the CDF zone. 

The report was circulated to all workshop presenters before being publicly shared. It is expected that there will be future iterations as work to study, refine, and strengthen ecologically-focused fire mitigation strategies in the CDF zone continues.

Executive summary 

On February 27, 2023, Transition Salt Spring (TSS) hosted a virtual practitioners workshop, Fire risk reduction in the Coastal Douglas-fir biogeoclimatic zone as an extension of efforts undertaken by the Climate Adaptation Research Lab (CARL) at TSS and collaborators since 2021. This community of practice works together to explore intersections between ecological enhancement and fire risk reduction in the Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) biogeoclimatic zone and surrounding areas. Ongoing discussions and preliminary results from on-the-ground work in pilot sites on Salt Spring Island, have highlighted gaps and challenges to addressing fire risk while maintaining ecological functionality and resilience in the highly settled CDF zone. 

One of these gaps is a lack of guiding resources for private landholders and managers outlining how to manage fire risk that are specific to the CDF zone where vulnerability to wildland urban interface (WUI) fires is high due to little separation between human settlements/infrastructure and forests. This is exacerbated by the CDF zone having some of the highest rates of human settlement in the province.¹ Regional WUI areas experience some of the highest rates of wildfire exposure in British Columbia.²

Fire risk in this region is not only a function of WUI but is also associated with the ubiquity of  degraded, second and third growth forests across the CDF zone. An example of such forests is provided in Photo 1 below. Climate change and extreme weather increase the need for prompt action to address existing hazards and reduce future vulnerability. 

A clear message from the community of practice assembled around this work is that some degree of active management is necessary for ecological recovery, climate adaptation, and wildfire risk mitigation. This report outlines some modes of intervention being piloted in the CDF zone; highlights tools, resources, and supports available through the Province of British Columbia and other authorities; and identifies information gaps unique to the CDF zone and neighbouring regions.

Background

The Maxwell Creek Watershed Project (the Project) was launched in November 2021. It is a collaborative, multidisciplinary forest restoration initiative based on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia (BC) under the leadership of Transition Salt Spring (TSS) with the support of multiple organisations including Brinkman Earth Systems, Coastal Douglas-fir Conservation Partnership, North Salt Spring Waterworks District, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Salt Spring Water Preservation Society, the University of British Columbia, and a number of private forest managers and other experts. The Project aims to create a template for restoring ecological integrity and climate resilience to Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) forests and associated ecological communities across the Gulf Islands, while also building a community of practice around established methodologies. Discussions within this community since 2021 have reinforced the reality that there are gaps and challenges to addressing fire risk while maintaining ecological functionality and resilience in the highly settled CDF biogeoclimatic zone.

The Climate Adaptation Research Lab (CARL) was established to oversee the Project in late 2022 and address these gaps and challenges while also responding to community interest in increasing climate resilience.³ The CARL focuses on answering the questions: 

• What activities are available to landholders to prevent catastrophic fire? 
• What techniques can help mitigate fire risk while enhancing ecological functions (flood regulation, water provision, carbon sequestration) and protecting other forest values such as biodiversity, cultural value, and sustainable timber supply?

Answers to these questions are being pursued through development and implementation of treatments designed to reduce fire risk, protect freshwater supply, and enhance local ecological integrity and climate resilience. Monitoring and documentation of potential benefits are designed following scientific methods and analysis. One early finding of the outreach and engagement component of the CARL is the lack of local tools, resources, and data available for privately held lands to understand and manage fire risk. Given that many conservancies, land trusts, researchers, forest and water managers, and local governments are working to address the same questions – for a range of different values – the time was ideal to host a workshop for practitioners and government representatives.  

Workshop summary

The workshop explored the ways humans engage with, and live within ecosystems throughout the CDF. It was facilitated by Carrie Oloriz and hosted by Ruth Waldick, with Dimirti Vaisius providing contextual support throughout. Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North-Gulf Islands and a member of the Tsartlip Nation, opened the workshop urging attendees to recognize plants, animals, and islands of the region as relatives and accept the responsibility of being good stewards of Coast Salish Territory.

Next, Quw’utsun (Cowichan) Elder, Robert George, shared a song and prayer, then spoke about the importance of working together rather than separately to protect local ecosystems. Like MLA Olsen, Elder George encouraged people to live in harmony with one another and the environment. 

A group of experts and practitioners who work in forest management on the southern coast of BC contributed to the rest of the workshop, which was divided into three sessions. Each presenter shared their experience and described approaches to prevent catastrophic wildfire through ecologically-informed forest management. A complete list of presenters and their affiliations/expertise are provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Workshop presenters

Session 1 – Practical realities: CDF forests and managing fire risk in the CDF region

Mark Lombard opened Session one by sharing experience from the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative (CCFC), which is held by Cortes Forestry General Partnership with Klahoose First Nation. The forest under the CCFC’s care amounts to over one third of Cortes Island’s land area presenting a significant responsibility to pursue wildfire mitigation projects. The CCFC has done significant planning, producing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan and complementary Five Year Plans to fulfil this obligation. Activities undertaken to date to reduce fire risk include thinning dense forest stands, creating fire breaks, and building increased access to high risk areas. Lombard also remarked on the socioeconomic challenges associated with working on a small tenure on a remote island where community buy-in is a key component of operational success.

Robert Seaton then discussed his work with the CARL, which aims to transition forest stands toward the ecological and structural diversity inherent to mature CDF forests prior to industrial logging (conditions that fostered fire resistance). Multi-pass thinning and pruning, native species reintroductions, and the installation of deer exclosures were all recommended approaches within the broad toolkit that will be needed to achieve this diversity.

Next, Bowie Keefer of Galiano Island described forest management aimed at rehabilitating abandoned industrial plantations now zoned as Privately Managed Forest Land (PFML). Keefer and some other PMFL holders on Galiano are employing “light-touch” approaches similar to those recommended by Seaton to achieve recreational, economic, fuel reduction, and forest restoration goals. 

Finally, Jay Zakaluzny, discussed wildfire risk in areas with high human populations and outlined initiatives Parks Canada has undertaken to reduce fire risk which include a combination of thinning, prescribed burning, and FireSmart protocols.

The discussion portion of Session 1 revealed some synergies between different scales and sectors. Though expressed in different ways, all practitioners emphasised the importance of: 

• collaboration and community engagement, 
• employing long-term perspectives in forest management, and
• achieving better balance between competing priorities and values (e.g. conserving biodiversity vs. economic viability).

Session 2 – Panel discussion: Reflections from local experts

The Session two panel discussion was moderated by Ruth Waldick and contributed to by Dimiti Vaisius, Tony Botica, Robert Seaton, and Conor Corbett. Though FireSmart Ambassador, Rob Syverson appears on the agenda for this session, he was unable to attend and Mitchell Sherrin filled this gap. The panel opened with a reflection from Waldick about Session one: that presenters seemed to be in consensus about the need for active management, but advancing that management at a broad scale is impeded by uncertainties and limitations such as identification of priority sites, funding availability, and determination of appropriate treatments for disparate sites.

Each panellist was then asked to describe their work and speak to the issues raised by Session one presenters. 

Dimitri Vaisius described the structure of the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) and highlighted the locations of the six regional Fire Centres in the province, which are further divided into local fire zones. Vaisius’ presentation focused on the Southern Gulf Islands (SGIs), which are within the South Island Fire Zone, to explain the jurisdictional responsibilities of BCWS. Using the Fire Behaviour Triangle⁴(Photo 3), Vaisius described how fire behaviour is understood, predicted, and planned for.  According to Vaisius, the CDF zone is looked at as a “unique area” from a fuel-typing perspective and fires act differently in the CDF compared to other biogeoclimatic zones. Vaisius also reassured attendees that the South Islands Fire Zone experiences few high risk wildfire  days per year.

Then Tony Botica briefly took the stage and introduced the Community Resiliency Investment Program, which provides financial support to Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities to pursue wildfire risk reduction efforts. Botica also echoed Session one presenters by reiterating the need for collaborative efforts between individuals, organizations, and communities to achieve efficacy in this work.

Next, Seaton returned to the screen, this time in his role as a Forest Analyst with Brinkman Earth Systems, and opened by clarifying the meaning of wildfire risk. Though there may be few days per year during which the likelihood of catastrophic fire in the SGIs is high, as asserted by Vaisius, this assessment fails to consider the magnitude of impact, which according to Seaton “would be horrendous”. Seaton goes on to explain that the “fire issue” is a result of industrial management regimes and its resolution will only be achieved using “ecosystem-[focused]” approaches. Particularly in the “terminally disturbed” CDF zone, ecologies at all scales, from backyards to bailiwicks, must be managed with long-term (i.e., 100+ years) resiliency in mind.

“We need to be thinking at a combination of scales. Not only at all scales for the forest stand in terms of heterogeneity, but also at all scales in terms of the work we do: a heterogenous approach to our management of the land”

Robert Seaton⁵

Next, Mitchell Sherrin opened by describing the natural fire resistance of CDF forests, but remarked that forest conditions have shifted due to climate change, invasions of volatile plant species, and fire suppression activities. Though many forest ecosystems coevolved alongside fire and have historically benefited from its occurrence, current forest conditions in the CDF zone combined with “high [amounts] of human values” mean that allowing fires to burn in this region is not a viable option. As a firefighter working in the CDF with an active interest in protecting human values, Sherrin upheld FireSmart protocols as an avenue toward enhancing community resilience, emphasizing the importance of customizing these protocols to fulfil site-specific needs.

Finally, Conor Corbett revisited the Fire Triangle (see Photo 3), emphasizing that fire history is an important factor to consider when determining the likelihood and severity of wildfire. Corbett also explained that in most regions of BC, communities gradually transition from a developed core (i.e., low wildfire risk) to more rural areas (i.e., higher wildfire risk). These rural areas have a high wildland urban interface (WUI). In the CDF however, this transition is less pronounced as communities are essentially “embedded in the forest”. Though historically, there has been a low frequency of wildfire in the CDF, this high degree of interface between wildland and human values (i.e., built infrastructure) presents a high risk to these communities.  Like presenters before, Corbett asserted that wildfire risk in the CDF must be approached at multiple scales with provincial and local governments taking the lead on landscape wildfire management and private landholders taking responsibility for their properties. For the latter Corbett recommended FireSmart Assessments for residential homes and Wildfire Threat Assessments for forested parcels.

Wildland urban interface (WUI, pronounced “yooey”): the transition zone between unoccupied land and human development. In these areas, “structures, usually private homes, and other human developments meet or are intermingled with wildland (vegetative) fuels or can be impacted by the heat transfer mechanisms of a wildfire, including ember transport.” 

Adapted from Natural Research Council of Canada⁶

Compared to Session 1, Session 2 focused more fully on the risks wildfire poses to privately held land. Engaging in risk management for the communities of the CDF zone, which mostly exist at the WUI, if not completely embedded in the forest, is made more complex by the high proportion of land that is held privately throughout the CDF. Though the panellists demonstrated that resources are being developed and asserted that multi-scale collaborations are the closest solution to a “silver bullet”⁷, it remains unclear how private landholders, in their many forms, including individuals, conservancies, and land managers, among others, will be meaningfully involved. Few of these private entities have the mandates, funding, or in-house knowledge to proceed in wildfire preparedness, but as the majority of land in the CDF is under their care they may be the most essential players in managing fire risk and restoring ecological integrity to the landscape. 

Session 3 – Roles, responsibilities, and opportunities for large land owners/managers

The last official session of the workshop focused on actionable solutions to the fire problem. Most of the learnings from this session have been incorporated into later sections of this report, so will be only briefly summarized here.

Session 3 opened with a presentation by Margaret Symon who shared experiences implementing FireSmart protocols in a residential context. Next, in an effort to reintegrate the protection of ecological values in a conversation skewing more heavily toward protection of human assets, Marlow Pellat was invited to discuss ecologically-informed wildfire management at the watershed-scale. Mitchell Sherrin then briefly rejoined the conversation naming an expansion of on-the-ground effort and establishment of  education initiatives as essential components of the overall response to wildfire risk in the CDF. The session closed with Jonathan Reimer, who introduced new community resources for the Capital Regional District including an intermittently applied fire bylaw,  evacuation guides, and Community Wildfire Resiliency Plans for Salt Spring and the SGIs (see Appendix II). The resiliency plans were described by Reimer “as everything discussed in the workshop and more”, and though they will likely be essential resources for wildfire preparedness for some,  they may not be accessible to others due to their technical focus.  

The workshop ended with informal final remarks from forest ecologist, Erik Piikkila, forest manager, David Haley, and current Salt Spring Island Local Trustee, Laura Patrick. These contributions are integrated in later sections of the report.

State of knowledge 

By synthesizing information shared by the CARL community of pra ctice over the past two years, culminating in the one-day workshop and post event debrief discussions, the following sections of this report (including the Appendices) aim to:

1. enhance understanding of past and current conditions of CDF forests (see Photo 4 for context),
2. identify the primary drivers of change within CDF forests over time, 
3. explore how changing conditions have influenced fire risk, and ultimately
4. mobilize teachings to mitigate fire risk through the enhancement of ecological integrity. 

Historical context 

Most biogeoclimatic zones in BC are categorized into a variety of subzones or variants. Conversely, the entire CDF zone is classified as a single “moist maritime” subzone. These moist conditions contributed to the coevolution of a naturally fire resistant assemblage of ecological communities. However, since settler arrival, systematic removal of Indigenous communities and thus Traditional stewardship practices, combined with industrial-scale logging, high rates of development, and fire suppression activities, have fragmented and homogenized forests. The dense, even-aged, low-diversity second, third, and in some cases fourth growth forests that dominate the landscape today are more often than not without ecological management and at risk of experiencing catastrophic wildfire.

Wildfire risk is a function of 1) probability and 2) severity. That is, 1) the likelihood of occurrence and 2) the consequences such an event might have on values such as built infrastructure. In the CDF zone, where communities are embedded in the forest, consequences of wildfire have the potential to be severe. Climate change is increasing this potential via prolonged and intensified droughts, higher average temperatures, and lower water availability. However, the jurisdictional matrix in this region makes coordinated planning and response difficult. The highest rates of private land ownership (about 80%) in a province where 95% of the landbase is provincial or federal crown land adds a particular layer of complexity that is unique to the CDF zone.  

Though current conditions may indicate the opposite, there is a long regenerative relationship between humans, fire, and ecosystems in this region.Humans employed fire to actively manage this landscape for millenia prior to settler contact. According to paleoecological findings and Indigenous Knowledge, low-intensity fires were lit in late summer and early fall to maintain the Garry oak/Camas ecosystems (see Photo 5) once common in the CDF zone with fire return intervals ranging  between 27 and 41 years. This pre-colonial Indigenous prescribed fire influenced the presence and structure of Garry oak/Camas gardens and it is reasonable to hypothesise that this approach likewise maintained a heterogeneous forest structure with greater levels of biodiversity than seen in forests throughout the region today.

By the mid-1800s settlers began clearing forests and draining wetlands at a broad scale for agriculture, at which point larger and more intense fires were observed. Terra nullius, Latin for “land that is deemed to be legally unoccupied’ was invoked by colonial governments around this same time, suppressing Indigenous land management practices and restricting prescriptive burns. 

Though colonial ideology remains entrenched in land management and policy to this day, there is a growing recognition of the histories of these landscapes and the validity of Indigenous Knowledge in managing them. The reintroduction of Indigenous land management practices is increasingly recognized as key to recovering species diversity, restoring ecological function, and reducing catastrophic fire risk. 

The role history plays in forest management was explored by forest ecologist, Erik Piikkila, both during the workshop and the in-person debrief on Salt Spring Island. A high-level summary of Piikkila’s reflections is provided in the pop-out box below, and a list of reference books and other resources Piikkila and others in the  community of practice have recommended is provided in Appendix II of this report.

Current conditions 

Climate change and extreme weather events over the last decade have raised concerns about increased risk of large-scale wildfire in the CDF zone. However, ground fires that left forests standing were common in CDF-associated ecological communities resulting in some degree of fire resistance within those communities. Increased vulnerability to stand disrupting fire today is the consequence of fire suppression and the homogenized structure of industrially logged landscapes. 

These over-dense, single-age, species-poor stands are often described as “tree deserts”, “tree farms”, or “monoculture stands”,  as they more closely resemble crops than forests to the trained eye. With the added uncertainty of climate change (the consequences of which would be exacerbated by large scale wildfires releasing carbon stores into the atmosphere), a measure of management is needed to help restore the heterogeneity and ecological complexity that once conferred natural fire resistance. This might include strategic thinning to restore the clump and gap structure characteristic of old-growth forests, removal of ladder fuels, and/or planting to increase native tree diversity. Table 2 outlines these and other proposed treatments to improve ecological integrity and reduce fire risk in CDF forests.

Table 2.  Desired conditions and proposed treatments for fire resistant forests

Understanding fire risk in the CDF zone: Challenges ahead

Though ecologically-informed management is a vital strategy for minimizing wildfire risk and maximizing local benefits (e.g., increased climate resilience, biodiversity, habitat availability, access to food and other non-timber forest products, etc), such management requires operating on ecological timescales. Securing long-term investment in forest management was one of the major challenges discussed during the workshop. For example, most thinning treatments require multiple passes by a trained professional who can appropriately select trees for removal to prevent windthrow and undue stress at a rate of once every ten-to-twenty years. Funding/grant programs are not designed to support sustained management activities of this sort. As a result, working with ecological timescales in mind, as recommended by Robert Seaton, is a significant challenge for practitioners within the community of practice and beyond.

As reiterated throughout this report,  current conditions within the CDF zone have created a higher likelihood of severe wildfire. However, the average number of days per year with a high risk of catastrophic burning in the South Island Fire Zone is small (i.e., less than 10 days per fire season). Yet, as noted by Robert Seaton, should a wildfire occur, particularly on a Gulf Island, the consequences could be catastrophic. Even if wildfires are expected to occur with low frequency and under very specific conditions, there is strong impetus to proactively pursue educational initiatives and targeted management activities to reduce the likelihood of an ignition during high risk periods. The pop-out box below outlines the factors that intersect to increase the likelihood and severity of a wildfire in the CDF zone.

Under typical conditions, BC Wildfire Service has high response capacity within the South Island Fire Zone. Wait times for aerial support are generally between three and ten minutes depending on which island requires service. Due to the physical isolation of the many island communities within the CDF zone, aerial response capacity is vital. However, as recent fire seasons have revealed, the “typical conditions” that have informed wildfire response in the past are shifting which may present a challenge for BCWS’ suppression resources in the future. 

Particularly because many residents within the CDF zone depend on ferries, it is important that communities familarize with resources like the evacuation guides prepared by the CRD (mentioned in the Session 3 summary) while also participating in on-the-ground wildfire prevention and preparedness planning. This presents another challenge because, as noted in Session 2 of the workshop, private landholders do not necessarily have access to the information or resources needed to engage in wildfire readiness. This is made doubly challenging by the dual purpose of this work: 1) wildfire mitigation through 2) enhancement of ecological integrity. One-size-fits all approaches are not necessarily conducive to fostering ecological integrity, but most existing resources are not site-specific or even generally specific to the CDF zone.

Further, due to the complex interjuristirctional management matrix within the CDF zone, it is challenging to establish and implement best management practices to prevent the occurrence of catastrophic wildfire. The pop-out box below provides an example of this complexity from the perspective of a fire chief based on the Southern Gulf Islands.

This complexity is partially the outcome of past zoning and jurisdictional management paradigms that are still in place in some areas, or, have not been updated to consider contemporary issues regarding land use. These issues include the current state of forests and their vulnerability to fire and settlement patterns, including the increasing WUI that is created as people choose to live in isolated forested areas. The combination of shifting, once fire-resistant systems toward more fire prone, young stands via industrial scale logging, replacement of Indigenous management with fire suppression, and the ‘leave it to mend itself’ approach to protecting forested areas are part of the challenge. Some key questions raised during the workshop and following debrief in regards to these issues included: 1) how should we be managing vulnerable forest areas? and 2) who should be responsible for ensuring they are appropriately (i.e. accounting for all the values outlined in this report) managed? 

Private landholder and forest manager, David Haley, explored the complexity of this interjurisdictional matrix near the end of the workshop with a particular focus on the challenges of implementing government programs on private land. Haley’s reflections are outlined in the  pop-out box below.

Among all the challenges associated with ecologically-informed wildfire mitigation, perhaps the most limiting are the disparate focuses and priorities of different agencies and responsible authorities. For example, though BCWS actively works at fire hazard assessment and risk reduction in applied forest settings, Private Forest Land managers, watershed managers, and conservancies have limited capacity and/or resources to manage fire, particularly given the complexity of regulatory, land management, and jurisdictional requirements (e.g., navigating fuel management near watershed boundaries, permits for tree thinning, etc). 

Experts within the CARL community of practice agree that there is no single approach or ‘rules’ when it comes to managing wildfire risk in the CDF zone, as the features and traits of different locations create different problems, many of which call for different approaches. Adaptive management will likely become an essential tool to develop a selection of diverse and site specific approaches.

“It is humbling to try to do forestry in a good way, and it’s humbling to do forestry in a way that makes sense for fire because what works in one place doesn’t always work in other places”

Mark Lombard⁹

Key challenges and takeaways summary

A high level summary of the key challenges to addressing wildfire risk through an ecologically-informed lens is provided in this section. More detailed explanations can be found in Appendix I. 

The ten key challenges identified through the workshop and associated gatherings are:

1. The CDF is a multi-jurisdictional landscape with few tools/resources available for preventing fire risk and enhancing ecological integrity on privately held land.
2. FireSmart is one of the only resources available to guide activities on privately held land.
3. There is a strong understanding of fire behaviour in other biogeoclimatic zones in BC, but little research has been done on the CDF specifically. 
4. There is a lack of guidance for implementing ecologically-focused practices to reduce fire risk in the CDF zone. 
5. Competing community values.
6. Provincial legislation is designed to support industrial-scale logging.
7. Climate change.
8. Inertia.
9. Funding availability.
10. Addressing fire risk in protected places.

A number of potential solutions were also proposed, including, but not limited to:

• New local policy tools, such as an “Educational Wildfire DPA” to guide wildfire preparedness planning.
• A new standard to guide conservation covenant holders in writing wildfire risk prevention measures into protection agreements.
• Funding programs to increase community collaboration and preparedness.

Ultimately, addressing the complexities of wildfire mitigation in the CDF zone will require 1) inter-jurisdictional land management to build community resilience and 2) the introduction (and reintroduction) of ecologically-informed land management practices, such as prescribed fire, thinning and ground fuel management strategies to recover ecological integrity on the landscape. 

Conclusion

In the CDF, and indeed across BC, a fundamental change in the relationship between forests, fire, and people is needed. The zero fire model (i.e., suppression) has failed and it is time to set new goals. Unfortunately, no one solution will work for all situations. The experts involved in the preparation of this workshop agree that education and generational effort will be central to ensuring that forest health is enhanced while risk of catastrophic fire is reduced in years to come. 

Though there are challenges to working in a multi-jurisdictional context, without collaboration efficacy will be limited. One landholder stewarding their property does not make much difference if their neighbour mismanages theirs. Collaboration and partnerships among stakeholders, including First Nation and other governments, local communities, NGOs, and the private sector, are crucial for effective forest management and conservation. Sharing resources, working together, and investing in the future of CDF forests and associated ecosystems for a variety of  values will be important steps forward. These ecosystems have historically done much to support human communities, but colonial landscape management approaches over the past 100+ years have given ecological integrity little consideration. It is time to learn from lessons from the past and look to the future. 

Appendix I: Key challenges and proposed solutions

The tables below contain detailed explanations of key challenges and proposed solutions identified in the workshop and associated discussions. They are coded red or yellow based on timescale. Red-coded challenges require immediate attention to address wildfire risk in the short-term, while yellow-coded challenges will likely require more time to address. A yellow code does not necessarily mean lower priority.

Key things to remember in reviewing this section of the report:

• Challenges within each colour code have been assembled in no particular order.
• Some challenges yielded fewer potential solutions than others. 
• Some proposed solutions are not applicable in all cases, while others are applicable in multiple. 
• Some solutions will require further development to address the associated challenge.

Ultimately, each challenge identified will be a focal point for ongoing work in the days following these early gatherings of experts and practitioners from across the CDF zone.

Appendix II: Recommended Resources

Books

• Pattern and Processes in a Forested Ecosystem: Disturbance, Development and the Steady State Based on the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study by F. Herbert Bormann & Gene Likens
• Ecological Forest Management by Jerry F. Franklin, K. Norman Johnson, and  Debora L. Johnson
• Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century: The Science Of Ecosystem Management by Kathryn A. Kohm and Jerry F. Franklin
• Conserving Forest Biodiversity: A Comprehensive Multiscaled Approach by David B. Lindenmayer and Jerry F. Franklin
• Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change: An Ecological and Conservation Synthesis by David B. Lindenmayer and Joern Fischer
• Salvage Logging and Its Ecological Consequences by David B. Lindenmayer, Philip J. Burton, and Jerry F. Franklin
• Watershed Management: Balancing Sustainability and Environmental Change by Robert J. Naimen
• The Tree Farm: The Evolution of Canada’s First Community Forest by Michelle Rhodes
• Old Growth in a New World: A Pacific Northwest Icon Reimagined edited by Thomas A. Spies and Sally L. Duncan

Government reports

• Density Management in the 21st Century: West side story – United States Department of Agriculture Pacific Northwest Research Station (2013)
• Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan for Salt Spring Island Electoral Area in the Capital Regional District – Diamondhead Consulting produced for the Capital Regional District (Feb, 2023) 
• Southern Gulf Islands CommunityWildfire Resiliency Plan At-a-Glance – Diamondhead Consulting produced for the Capital Regional District (Feb, 2023) 

Films

• The West is Burning

Articles and op-eds

• Acuna, M, Palma, C.D., Cui, W., Martell, D.L., Weintraub, A. (2010). Integrated spatial fire and forest management planning. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 40(12): 2370-2383. DOI: 10.1139/X10-151
• Giuliano, C., and Lacourse, T. (2023).  Holocene fire regimes, fire-related plant functional types, and climate in south-coastal British Columbia forests. Ecosphere 14(2): e4416. DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.4416
• Halofsky, J.E., Peterson, D.L. & Harvey, B.J. (2020). Changing wildfire, changing forests: the effects of climate change on fire regimes and vegetation in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Fire Ecology, 16, 4. DOI: 10.1186/s42408-019-0062-8
• Hirsch, K.,  Kafka, V.,  Tymstra, C., McAlpine, R., Hawkes, B., Stegehuis, H., Quintilio, S.,  Gauthier, S., & Peck, K. (2011). Fire-smart forest management: A pragmatic approach to sustainable forest management in fire-dominated ecosystems. The Forestry Chronicle, 77(2): 357-363. DOI: 10.5558/tfc77357-2 
• Johnston, L.M., Wang, X., Erni, S., , Taylor, S.W, McFayden, C.B., Oliver, J.A., Stockdale, C., Christianson, A., Boulanger, Y., Gauthier, S., Arseneault, D., Wotton, B.M., Parisien, M.A., & Flannigan, M.D. (2020). Wildland fire risk research in Canada. Environmental Reviews. 28(2): 164-186. DOI: 10.1139/er-2019-0046
• CARL Project Field Files
• Penn, B & Holt, R. (2023, Aug 24). As big burns become the new normal, we need new forest management policies. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/opinion-we-need-new-forest-management-policies-to-put-an-end-to-big-burns
• Story of the CDF article series
  • The return of fire to the landscape
  • An ancient legacy, a critical future
• Wong, C., B. Dorner, and H. Sandmann. (2003). Estimating historical variability of natural disturbances in British Columbia. B.C. Min. For., Res. Br., B.C. Min. Sustain. Resource. Manage., Resource Plan. Br., Victoria, B.C. Land Manage. Handb. No. 53. www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/Docs/Lmh/Lmh53.htm