The end lies in sight for the latest efforts to reduce wildfire risk in a Nakusp-area forest, thanks to hundreds of thousands of dollars in provincial funding support.
The Forestry Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) announced April 24 that it would dish out millions in fuel treatment, which includes $779,248 for a 73-hectare chunk of the Nakusp & Area Community Forest (NACFOR).
Fire risk mitigation on NACFOR's Unit 5 has reached the end of Phase 1, with mechanical and hand-thinning treatment now set to progress with the help of FESBC's funding, according to communications specialist Skye Cunningham.
Unit 5, northeast of Nakusp by the Wensley Creek Cross Country Ski Trails, has been deemed important to treat as part of local wildland-urban interface, based on the village's 2008 Community Wildfire Protection Plan, Cunningham said.
"Unit 5 is one of the last ones treatment has been completed for," she said. "It has lots of values 鈥� recreation, for one, visuals and wildlife, domestic watershed."
Cunningham added that the focus for Unit 5 is on separating tree crowns and clearing excess understory, to lessen the ability for fire to spread between trees.
"That helps to create a more defensible space," she said.
The subsequent Phase 2 for Unit 5 now entails completing a "prescription" list of future wildfire mitigation activities to be carried out, which was drafted in the last two weeks of April, Cunningham said.
This latest nearly $800,000 in support for NACFOR comes from the $60 million that FESBC received from B.C.'s 2024 budget for three years of funding for community-focused wildfire mitigation.
NACFOR has operated since 2008 and oversees 9,192 hectares of community forest. It's owned by the Village of Nakusp, and has previously invested in wildfire mitigation for its Unit 5, including in 2023.
"The next sort of step is a resiliency plan, which I would say is a little more robust than the protection plan," Cunningham added.
