Integrated Fire Management Planning: Mitigating risk to the ecological integrity and function of regional connectivity corridors
Date: February 15, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Larry Price, RPF, Mitigation Specialist, First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS). Larry is a Registered Professional Forester, as well as Forest Technologist with 50 years of experience working throughout BC. Current responsibilities include working with First Nations to identify community needs and support access to funding for implementing measures that reduce wildfire risk and increase community resiliency. Over his career Larry has worked with the Provincial Government at the District, Regional and Headquarters level and for the past 12 years with FNESS.
Currently within BC at strategic, tactical, and operational levels there is a lack of collaborative all hazard risk planning. Current wildfire mitigation programs focus on project-based planning and do not take into account multi-resource planning through space and time. Wildfire prevention initiatives need to be developed with consideration for multi-resource management planning on the land base over the short (0 to 20 years) and longer-term for 7 generations (200 years +).
First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS) is working with First Nations to develop an integrated spatial data base and planning tools to support collaborative planning. Regional connectivity corridors have been identified as a key component for biodiversity and wildfire landscape resiliency. Integrated Fire Management (IFM) Planning provides a framework to develop and implement management strategies that will maintain or enhance the ecological integrity and function of regional connectivity corridors through space and time. This along with strategies and actions for managing a wide range of values on the natural and built environment, are necessary for creating conditions that support wildfire resiliency throughout British Columbia.
