Burns Lake Community Forest (BL Comfor) is reporting that the K1A licence has received approval of its visual amendment request to implement phase two of its landscape fire mitigation efforts across the hills of Spud Mountain from Highway 16 to Tchesinkut Lake.
On May. 15, 2019, B.A Blackwell & Associates delivered a comprehensive landscape fire report. The report provided an unbiased opinion, that identified 63 per cent of the landscape in the BL Comfor that was composed of hazardous fuel types, many of these areas of high hazard zones within designated reserves for other values including old growth management areas and established visual quality objectives.
The Blackwell plan emphasizes that to ignore or restrict the treatment of these areas will limit the effectiveness of this plan and substantially limit suppression resource’s ability to contain catastrophic wildfire within this tenure.
“In times of socio-economic uncertainty, this approval will help continue providing support of our local economies in the most balanced way possible. The board is excited receiving this decision and would like to acknowledge the leadership and professionalism of District Manager Beth Eagle and her team at Nadina District,” said BL Comfor President Crystal Fisher.
Over the next couple weeks and months, staff will be finalizing some details including visual design demonstrations using innovative visual design solutions supported by LlamaZoo software, and collaborating with district staff on the details.
“In five years as the manager, this is the most timely and professional rational that we have received, and we are excited to bring these efforts to fruition in collaboration with the team in Nadina District,” Said BL ComFor General Manager Frank Varga. “This approval helps validate our efforts in fire ecosystem based management and our efforts for maximum fiber recovery of dead blowdown pine.”
“We are excited that we have a plan that gives us direction to address local concerns for community sustainability. Our goals are to be stewards of the land for the long term and to continue to provide benefits to the community and to our First Nation partners,” Varga continued.
Progress of this work will be communicated on the website and on the BL Comfor Facebook page.
READ MORE: B.C. pauses logging on up to 2.6M hectares of old-growth forest