Dr. Paul Hessburg of the U.S. Forest Service will be in Williams Lake on Wednesday, March 7 to talk about the “era of megafires.”
Hessburg’s Ted talk was shown to audiences in the Cariboo last fall, but this time the landscape ecologist will be in the lakecity to talk about how the future without wildfires is not an option.
“So, what kind of future do we want for our forests?” Hessburg asks.” The goal of this project is to share a vocabulary and increase the understanding and ability of ordinary citizens so that they can enter into local discussions and planning for a more certain future for public forest lands.”
Speaking to city council Tuesday at its committee of the whole meeting, biologist Kristi Iverson from Lac La Hache and Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society’s Vanessa Moberg encouraged council to attend Hessburg’s presentation in the Gibraltar Room beginning at 7 p.m.
“We have 100 to 1,000 times more trees in our stands than we used to have so the amount of fuel we have is massive,” Iverson said. “We take that scenario and couple it with climate change where we are having hotter and drier summers, and more fluctuation.”
Last winter there was lots of precipitation, the ponds were filled and normally after a winter like that the region would have fires, but nothing like the summer of 2017, she added.
“The projections for the increased areas of burning is steadily climbing, and Paul talks about that.”
The presentation is being sponsored by the Cariboo Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition and North 40 Productions.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
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