ICLR talk to discuss forest fire risk management

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction will be holding a workshop focused on forest fires from a risk management perspective.

The April 11 event, part of ICLR’s ongoing Friday Forum series, will host David Martell a professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto.

“Fire is a natural forest ecosystem process but it can and often does pose significant threats to public safety, property and forest resources,” ICLR says.

“Given the uncertainty concerning when and where fires might occur and how they might spread, climate change and fiscal constraints, forest fire management is risk management writ large on regional, provincial and national scales.”

Martell will describe how fire management agencies operate and some of the many risk management challenges they face. He will also discuss some of the decision support systems that have been developed to deal with fire-related risks to timber production and fuel management in and near wildland urban interface (WUI) areas around communities where fire most often threatens public safety.

Martell’s research is focused on the development and implementation of decision support systems for fire and forest managers. During the fire season he is assigned, as a researcher, to one of Ontario’s fire Incident Management Teams.

The workshop will be held at ICLR’s offices at 120 Richmond St. East in downtown Toronto from 10:00am to 11:30am.

It will also be streamed online:

• Webex Login:   https://iclr.webex.com/iclr/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=662119330
• Password: forest
• Conference Call numbers: Local – 416-343-2657 OR Toll free – 1-866-440-8938
• Conference ID: 1712397#

RSVP: Tracy Waddington (twaddington@iclr.org)