WHEREAS the Province of British Columbia continues to experience wildfires due to ineffective fire suppression activities, drying weather trends and mountain pine beetle infestations on Crown, public and private lands; AND WHEREAS the Province of British Columbia government: - commissioned the Firestorm 2003 Report Filmon Report to provide recommendations to prevent future wildfire events; and - provides limited funding for local governments to implement Community Wildfire Protection Plans on Crown and public lands; however, does not provide funding for or require fuel mitigation works to be conducted on private lands leaving such regulation to individual local governments to establish, enforce and assume the liability associated with those programs: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that UBCM lobby the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations to enact provincial standards to ensure a province-wide comprehensive wildfire protection and works program is established, funded, executed and enforced for both private and public lands beginning with those lands at highest risk and immediately adjacent to residential areas.
Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations fully supports wildfire risk mitigation on private lands, and to that end, the Wildfire Management Branch has been working with the Office of the Fire Commissioner and the Thompson Okanagan Interface Steering Committee, to implement the Fire Smart Canada program as means to support community and landowner participation in wildfire risk mitigation on private lands. Fire Smart activities on private lands are best fulfilled at the local government level as a majority of these lands fall under the mandate of local authority. Local governments understand the risk and are best positioned to identify which areas need to be managed within the context of their broader Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Mitigating wildfire risk is everyones responsibility and the Province is fulfilling its role for fuel management on public and municipal lands, by providing 62 million in funding since 2004 for the Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative to complete fuel management activities with local governments.