Canadian Underwriter
News

Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction to host forum on wildfire affected communities in Alberta and B.C.


April 21, 2015   by Canadian Underwriter


Print this page Share

The Toronto-based Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) will host a forum next month on the status of the recovering wildfire affected communities of Slave Lake, Alta. and Kelowna, B.C.

A burned-out truck is shown in Slave Lake, Alta., Wednesday, July 6, 2011. Alberta RCMP say they are trying to locate six potential witnesses in their investigation into the $700-million wildfire last May that ravaged Slave Lake. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

The risk reduction status of the recovering wildfire impacted communities of Slave Lake and Kelowna forum will be held from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on May 15. It will discuss the wildfire/urban interface (WUI) problem, outline the results of a study on wildfire disasters and explore implications for future wildfire risk reduction (i.e. FireSmart) programs and communication initiatives. The topic will be of interest to the full range of stakeholders generally considered to be “partners in WUI fire protection,” such as agency wildland fire managers, municipal fire and public safety officials, insurers, urban planners, municipal administrators, researchers and fire prevention educators.

The forum presenter and investigator is Alan Westhaver, recently retired after 27 years as a senior wildland fire manager with Parks Canada, said information from ICLR. He is a past president of Partners in Protection, served on its board of directors (1992-2012) and co-chaired the working group that developed and published the original FireSmart manual: Protecting Your Community from Wildfire in 1999. His 2006 M.Sc. thesis resulted in practical, ecologically-based fuel/vegetation measures that are FireSmart and ForestWise (for example, effectively reducing wildfire risks in ways that also respect the values of residents with regards to aesthetic concerns, wildlife habitat, and ecosystem function). These were implemented on 1000+ hectares of forest surrounding the Town of Jasper, Alta. and serve as a model for other WUI communities that require extensive fuel modification, the information said.

The ICLR reported that wildfires in Kelowna (2003) and Slave Lake (2011) caused more than $1 billion in insured losses, destroyed 722 homes and affected thousands of local residents.

Following the development of FireSmart guidelines – a set of risk mitigations – in 1999, concerns arose that homeowners were slow to accept and implement these solutions, the ICLR information said. To answer the question of to what degree have homeowners actually adopted FireSmart measures to mitigate the risk of future wildfire losses, a recent investigation, sponsored by the ICLR, examined homes and properties rebuilt following the 2003 and 2011 wildfire disasters.

Modified hazard assessments were conducted on nearly 450 of these homes to evaluate twenty different hazard factors related to structural, vegetation/fuel, topographic, and ignition potential. The level of residual wildfire hazard was used as a proxy for the degree of resident adoption of FireSmart mitigations. “Analyses revealed the significance of individual hazards, relationships among categories of hazards, their net effect on the probability of home ignition in the future, and important differences between the two geographic areas and ‘interface’ and ‘intermix’ situations,” the information said. “Recommendations are made for improving the effectiveness of future FireSmart programs that aim to educate and engage residents in wildfire loss reduction.”

The forum is part of the ICLR’s Friday Forum series.

Where: ICLR, 20 Richmond Street East, Suite 210, Toronto

The event will also be available for attendance online via Webex. 

RSVP: Tracy Waddington (twaddington@iclr.org)


Print this page Share

Have your say:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*