Experts say Manitoba needs better forest management to mitigate wildfires — but some divided on best practices

CBC

7 hours ago

Experts say Manitoba needs better forest management practices to mitigate and prevent the devastating impacts of wildfires, but there isn't a clear consensus on the best course forward, after a season that saw wildfires claim two lives and at least 130 cabins and homes.
Fires have also forced more than a dozen communities to evacuate and scorched more than seven per cent of the province's forests so far this year.
This country's forest management has been in the spotlight in the last month after American lawmakers complained to Canada's ambassador to the United States about the wildfire smoke blowing south of the border. They pointed to "a lack of active forest management" as the key driver.
The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers has said "suppression alone is no longer adequate" to tackle wildfires, pointing to the benefits of FireSmart Canada and other prevention and mitigation strategies, including controlled and traditional cultural burns.
However, experts don't all agree on best practices.
CBC News requested an interview with the Manitoba government about its forest and wildfire management plans, including prescribed burns, but the province deferred commenting until the fall, saying staff were "quite busy with wildfire suppression right now."
A provincial spokesperson said there would be a review of Manitoba's preparedness and suppression efforts after the wildfire season.
Land management practices
British Columbia-based wildland fire ecologist Robert Gray argues communities in fire-prone regions aren't adequately protected — but he says they can become more resilient by treating about 40 per cent of the surrounding landscape to prevent or slow wildfires from spreading into towns.
Fire and fuel management practices include clearing and thinning trees and prescribed burning, which involves deliberately setting an area of land on fire in a controlled way, Gray said.
Practices also include restoring grasslands and wet meadows, along with shifting conifer-heavy forests to hardwoods, such as aspen and willow, which Gray says aren't as flammable.
Gray pointed to a case he was involved in, at the Ktunaxa Nation community of Aq'am north of Cranbrook, B.C.
He said last summer, the Canadian Rockies International Airport was spared by a wildfire, as were most of the community's homes, thanks to a large-scale, 12-square-kilometre prescribed burn in 2023.
"It still wasn't big enough, but that's the start," Gray said. "We're just not doing it fast enough at a big enough scale.
"Fire is a contagion. It moves through a landscape, and it finds those holes, and it'll exploit them, so you have to do a consistent job out to a good distance."
That distance could be 10 to 20 kilometres from a community's edge to protect it from unforgiving embers carried by strong winds.
He argues governments have a greater role to play in supporting communities and landowners to participate in fuel management, because most are bordered by Crown or private land.
Gray said provinces must better regulate the forest industry to make sure activities like logging and tree planting are carried out with a focus on fire and fuel management.
"If we don't do that, we won't have an industry," Gray said.
"I can confidently say that the industry is scared to death."
A spokesperson for Manitoba National Resources Minister Ian Bushie said in an email that the province will be having conversations with local leaders about the benefits and risks of controlled burns and thinning.
Backcountry travel and fire bans
Another wildfire expert said some of these practices may be controversial, because residents "love their animals and their forests, and they don't want it cleared."
Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University, says proactive backcountry travel and fire bans, along with FireSmart homes, would be a more effective strategy in a country with vast boreal forests, where wildfires are a natural part of the ecology.
Flannigan said Manitoba's approach of monitoring wildfires that aren't threatening communities, "which is working with Mother Nature," is appropriate, as opposed to always suppressing all wildfires, a costly practice he said is common in the U.S.
Between 2016 and 2020, 58 per cent of wildfires in Manitoba were caused by lightning, a Manitoba forestry report says.
The rest were human-caused. That's where Flannigan says we should be targeting our attention.
Prioritizing education and travel bans in forested areas is crucial, he said, especially in spring, which is dominated by human-caused wildfires — something the province acknowledged in its first fire bulletin of 2025.
Flannigan, however, says provinces are often reluctant to impose bans, "because it's so unpopular, because it means no industry and no recreation."
In hindsight, Manitoba could have been more aggressive with its bans and education outreach, he said.
The province first announced enhanced fire and travel restrictions, beyond annual burn permit requirements, at the end of April for Manitoba's Interlake and southeastern regions, which came into effect May 2.
By mid-June, the province reported 103 of Manitoba's 116 wildfires by that point were caused by people.
FireSmart homes
Flannigan also advocates for provinces to make the FireSmart program mandatory in at-risk locations — an idea Minister Bushie's spokesperson said needs more review.
"It is very challenging to adapt a building that may be 50 years old to current codes or guidelines," the spokesperson said.
FireSmart focuses on what property owners and residents can do around their homes. It includes making sure buildings are outfitted with fire-rated materials and that immediate surroundings have fire-resistant trees that are well-pruned and spaced out. This approach is encouraged by the Manitoba government on a voluntary basis.
Canada's first FireSmart community, the District of Logan Lake, B.C., credits its fire prevention and mitigation efforts with saving the town in 2021.
The annual wildfire season has been intensified by climate change, burning hotter, longer, and closer to homes. In this new reality, how can communities adapt and protect themselves? Radio-Canada's Camille Vernet went searching for answers in Logan Lake. The town spent decades working on wildfire prevention, and their efforts paid off in 2021, when they successfully defended themselves against raging flames.
Flannigan says FireSmart communities with sprinklers are likely to survive a wildfire, but only if nearly everyone participates.
"You're only as strong as your weakest link when extremes happen," he said.
Meanwhile, Gray agrees with parts of FireSmart, but the ability and willingness of most property owners to pay for landscaping and renovations means big problems for the strategy, he said.
"The tangible part is fuels management. If we change the behaviour of the fire coming at a community, we reap the benefits, whether or not a majority of homes are FireSmart," he said.
"That fire, if it's on the ground, the local fire department can safely action it."
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