Operational Fuel Treatment Project

Operational fuel management projects generally involve larger scale treatments of forest fuels to protect communities and values. One of our key priorities is to treat forests adjacent to communities with Mountain Pine Beetle affected stands. Once a community has completed a Community Wildfire Protection Plan which identifies and prioritizes high hazard fuels, it can be used to highlight areas in and around communities that need to be treated to reduce their fire behaviour potential. Funding for these treatments is available through the Union of British Columbia Municipalities.

In some circumstances a community may be approved to carry out an operational treatment before their CWPP is complete. An example of this would be work in a Mountain Pine Beetle affected stand that is in and adjacent to a community. In this case a site prescription would still be required and the appropriate tenure documentation would still need to be submitted.

Operational fuel management treatments must be ecosystem based and tailored to the specific forest stand. To ensure success, site considerations must factor in a large number of variables such as:

• Fire parameters including fuel, weather and topography,
• Key areas to protect,
• Existing higher level plan considerations,
• Surface, ladder and canopy fuel reduction objectives,
• Spacing and pruning standards,
• Stocking standards and preferred retention species,
• Forest pest and pathogen considerations,
• Harvesting prescriptions and future timber production,
• Water quality and soil conservation,
• Public impact and perception

There is not a uniform fuel management treatment regime that will be successful in all forest stands. Each forest ecosystem is unique and will need a treatment prescription tailored to it. Some forests may require multiple stand entries to achieve the desired results.

There are a number of forest tenures that may be used to carry out a fuel management treatment. Information on forest tenures for fuel management treatments is available at the Resource Tenures and Engineering Branch.