Fuel Management and Wildfire Impacts on Vegetation, Wildlife and Water Quality Given Climate Change

Fuel Management and Wildfire Impacts on Vegetation, Wildlife and Water Quality Given Climate Change

Wildlife cameras have been deployed throughout two regions burned by wildfire, one in 2018 and one in 2021, with cameras within unburned control sites, and burned sites at various burn severities. Many cameras are also up in two unburned control sites. All locations where cameras are deployed have had vegetation surveys conducted. These study areas are in the West Kootenays. The objectives are to assess how wildfire mitigation techniques and wildfires themselves impact water quality, vegetation recovery, and wildlife use over time. By furthering our understanding of these impacts, we design and implement restoration techniques in the face of climate change and shifting species assemblages to facilitate vegetation recovery following wildfire to increase forage for wildlife, reduce sediment runoff into water sources and assist with other aspects of ecosystem health. This research is vital given that climate change predicts longer fire seasons with higher severity fires (as seen last summer) and increased wildlife conflict in communities given reduced food sources in natural settings (Abrahms 2021), making restoration of fire-affected sites more important than ever. This year (2022) was the pilot year, with hopes of expanding the project in 2023. This project is a collaboration between Nature Conservancy of Canada, Okanagan Nation Alliance, University of British Columbia, and the Arrow Lakes Environmental Stewardship Society, with additional contributions from the Province of British Columbia and the Whitebark Pine Foundation of Canada.