Feds, industry join forces to establish wildfire resilience centre

Canada’s federal government has announced an $11.7-million investment over four years to establish the Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada (WRCC), a national centre of excellence and virtual hub for wildland fire innovation and knowledge exchange.

The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) is the lead organization running the consortium, says ICLR managing director Glenn McGillivray, who is also vice chair of the WRCC’s board of directors.

The non-profit entity is supported by several organizations, including core partners ICLR and FPInnovations and foundational partners the National Indigenous Fire Safety Council, Thompson Rivers University Wildfire and the Forest Products Association of Canada.

It is funded through Natural Resource Canada’s (NRC) Wildfire Resilient Initiative, which invests in programs and activities to enhance wildfire resilience in Canada and reduce wildfire risks in support of the National Adaptation Strategy, says an NRC press release.

Canadian Underwriter asked McGillivray the reasoning behind the establishment of the consortium.

Fragmented sector

McGillivray points to the fragmentation of the wildfire management sector (similar to flood) in Canada. He notes there are many groups that work in the space, including provincial wildfire agencies, local fire departments, provincial and local emergency managers, academics of all kinds, medical professionals, forest products companies, insurers, and home builders, among others.

“It’s a very siloed segment, even within organizations,” McGillivray says. “There is very little information sharing, few best practices and so on.

“The Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada seeks to address this fragmentation and provide a platform (national and international) to get the various players talking and sharing, whether its new science, new technological advances or millennia-old Indigenous practices that have been pushed aside for far too long.”

WRCC will advance many of the actions in the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter, agreed to by the leaders of the G7 this spring in Canada and endorsed by the leaders of Australia, India, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa, NRC says in the release.

For example, the Charter discusses implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures such as sustainable forest management, nature-based solutions, Indigenous land management practices including cultural or controlled burning, and adopting fire risk reduction measures around communities, buildings and infrastructure.

It also mentions leveraging tools such as fire danger rating systems, geospatial technologies and early warning systems, and identifying areas for active restoration efforts versus those where natural regeneration works best, among other action items.

“[WRCC] will bring together domestic and international governments, communities impacted by wildfires, the private sector and individual experts to share knowledge, facilitate collaboration and accelerate the use of cutting-edge science and technology in wildfire prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response,” NRC says. “It will also support Indigenous fire stewardship and the cultural use of fire, recognizing and respecting traditional knowledge as a critical component of wildfire resilience.”

Says Julie Dabrusin, the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change: “This summer, we are witnessing the direct impact of climate change on communities across our country, as we are seeing an increase of wildfires across Canada. Collaboration, scientific research and improved technologies are essential in adapting to this new reality.”