WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.300 Down below me are the forests of British Columbia, BC for short. 2 00:00:04.300 --> 00:00:07.140 They're home to people - a few, anyway - wildlife, and 3 00:00:07.140 --> 00:00:10.790 basically every alien planet that Stargate SG-1 ever went to. 4 00:00:10.790 --> 00:00:12.350 Now I don't want to be too simplistic here, 5 00:00:12.350 --> 00:00:15.980 but forests are made of wood. And wood is flammable. 6 00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:17.050 Very flammable. 7 00:00:17.050 --> 00:00:19.860 Just over that ridge is the site of the Elaho wildfire, 8 00:00:19.860 --> 00:00:23.060 which in 2015 burned an area the size of Manhattan 9 00:00:23.060 --> 00:00:24.420 over 10 weeks. 10 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:25.780 And that was just a small one. 11 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:33.340 In 2017, 19 wildfires combined together to burn an area 130km end-to-end. 12 00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:38.700 - Since about 2003, we have been having continuously record-breaking temperatures, 13 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:42.250 record-breaking droughts, and record-breaking fire seasons. 14 00:00:42.250 --> 00:00:45.188 The fires that we have observed in the last decade 15 00:00:45.188 --> 00:00:50.190 are large, aggressive fires that are very difficult to control. 16 00:00:50.190 --> 00:00:53.960 Often, when we see fires, we look at them and think they're destructive, but in truth, 17 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.280 many fires do more good than harm. 18 00:00:57.280 --> 00:00:59.140 We see, in our northern forests, 19 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:01.950 trees are actually adapted to release their seeds 20 00:01:01.950 --> 00:01:04.700 and to grow back after a major fire, 21 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:06.460 which burns from tree top to tree top 22 00:01:06.460 --> 00:01:09.250 and kills those trees, creating large openings. 23 00:01:09.250 --> 00:01:13.640 In our drier ecosystems, they're kind of a lower intensity surface fire 24 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:17.220 that cleanses the forest, takes away the dead grasses, 25 00:01:17.220 --> 00:01:20.100 the branches that have accumulated down on the ground, 26 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:23.170 but leaves the big trees that are resistant to that fire 27 00:01:23.170 --> 00:01:27.230 and create a very healthy ecosystem that is dependent on fire. 28 00:01:27.230 --> 00:01:30.640 - Now, I grew up in England, where there's not much woodland left 29 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:32.860 and what there is is carefully managed and controlled. 30 00:01:32.860 --> 00:01:36.810 So to me, the idea that fire could be a good thing is counterintuitive. 31 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:38.990 And don't get me wrong, playing with matches in a forest 32 00:01:38.990 --> 00:01:40.980 is still a very bad idea. 33 00:01:40.980 --> 00:01:43.220 But it turns out that having a professional 34 00:01:43.220 --> 00:01:46.210 set a precise fire at a precise time and place 35 00:01:46.210 --> 00:01:48.220 could actually be a good idea. 36 00:01:48.220 --> 00:01:51.420 - In absence of fires, the fuels have built up in the forests 37 00:01:51.420 --> 00:01:55.830 and now, when we have fires, they're even more intense than they were in the past. 38 00:01:55.830 --> 00:01:59.440 Historically, we know that fires, in parts of the province, 39 00:01:59.440 --> 00:02:03.400 especially in the dry forests of British Columbia, were really frequent. 40 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:07.240 So these are fires that would burn through the understory of the forest 41 00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:08.360 and in those forests, 42 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:11.500 we have thick-barked trees that are adapted to fire. 43 00:02:11.500 --> 00:02:14.210 So they resist the fire and they survive. 44 00:02:14.210 --> 00:02:16.580 Each of these marks down at the bottom that you can see 45 00:02:16.580 --> 00:02:21.110 is a fire scar embedded in the tree rings and it is showing 46 00:02:21.110 --> 00:02:24.360 the history of fire in this particular environment. 47 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:27.145 There are enough fire scars embedded in the tree rings 48 00:02:27.145 --> 00:02:31.530 that it burned 42 times over its lifetime. 49 00:02:31.530 --> 00:02:36.278 Up until 2010, our policy in BC was 100% fire suppression. 50 00:02:36.278 --> 00:02:40.450 So we would try to detect and suppress fires as quickly as possible. 51 00:02:40.450 --> 00:02:44.500 As of 2012, we changed to allow managed wildfires 52 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:47.730 on the landscape, allowing some fires in remote areas 53 00:02:47.730 --> 00:02:50.670 where it doesn't put human lives or values at risk. 54 00:02:50.670 --> 00:02:52.670 Those managed fires are trying to get 55 00:02:52.670 --> 00:02:55.550 the ecosystem to function as it did historically. 56 00:02:55.550 --> 00:02:59.880 So if we go into those areas that have dense forests right up to our backyards 57 00:02:59.880 --> 00:03:03.800 and if we assess those forests and remove some of the trees, 58 00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:07.050 in particular, the small trees in the understory, 59 00:03:07.050 --> 00:03:09.590 and then come in and use a prescribed burn 60 00:03:09.590 --> 00:03:12.220 to clean up all the small fuels on the ground 61 00:03:12.220 --> 00:03:16.040 and stimulate all those fire-adapted plants in the understory, 62 00:03:16.040 --> 00:03:19.860 we can not only reduce the risk of fire damaging our communities, 63 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:23.930 but we can restore our ecosystems and improve ecosystem health. 64 00:03:23.930 --> 00:03:26.890 - My pilot today has been Bradley Friesen, along with-- 65 00:03:26.890 --> 00:03:29.060 - Mr. Bentley, the dog. - Co-pilot back there. 66 00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:30.540 And you're starting a channel soon called? 67 00:03:30.540 --> 00:03:32.460 - Destruction by Gravity. - That's gonna be a fun one. 68 00:03:32.460 --> 00:03:33.950 There's not much there yet, but check it out. 69 00:03:33.950 --> 00:03:36.128 I think there's gonna be some fun stuff. 70 00:03:36.128 --> 00:03:38.870 Thank you to you, thank you also to Dr. Lori Daniels at UBC. 71 00:03:38.870 --> 00:03:40.620 - A lot of fun, I liked it.