Dr. Lori Daniels and her team of UBC Forestry students spent some time in the Whistler valley in late September monitoring and measuring a variety of parameters in the forests to determine how wildfire fuel mitigation projects (aka, fuel thinning) affect forests and fire behaviour.

How do Fuel Treatments Tame the Flames? 

View their informative poster: Fuel for Thought: How Treatments Tame the Flames

Thinning treatments transform young dense forests to resemble mature forests and shift predicted fire behaviour from active crown fire to surface fire which is easier to defend against.

Young untreated forests…
Are dense with short trees and low branches
Have abundant ladder and canopy fuels and the highest prediction of active crown fire (100%)

Mature treated forests…
Have low tree density, tall trees, and high branches, with fewer canopy fuels
Have the lowest prediction of active crown fire (27%) and highest chance of surface fire (55%)

Proactive fuel treatments…
Emulate and accelerate forest development from young to mature structures
Mitigate fuel loads and shift predicted fire behaviour from crown to surface fire
Increase forest resilience by reducing potential for severe crown fires in future.

Take Home Message

Our findings show proactive fuel treatments reduce chance of crown fire by half, increasing forest resilience in the wildland urban interface of Whistler.