In Canada's beautiful Banff National Park I first met up with Robert Osiowy, Project Co-ordinator for the Mountain Parks Fire Restoration Project. Rob is currently doing his Master's thesis on fuel loadings in Riparian areas in Banff National Park. Together we headed out with Dave Verhulst, the Fire Communications Officer to collect some data from one of his plots.
As with much of the continent of North America, Canada has moved from a suppression driven fire regime to one that is focussed on re-introducing fire into forests to maintain their health. The negative impacts of the removal of fire from the landscape, that had been regularly fired by the Native Americans prior to European settlement, include; intense wildfires through long unburnt fuels resulting in forest mortality (stand replacement) and the ensuing damaging erosion; an ongoing change in forest types, for example, from more open grassy woodlands to closed dense forests; as well as changes in the fauna assemblages such as an increase in the elk population in the park which has led to the decline of aspen species through over browsing. The program of reintroduction of prescribed fire (more frequent low to moderate intensity fire) is designed to help in reducing the intensity of wildfires to help to ameliorate the negative impacts of infrequent fire and to maintain or increase the biodiversity of the park, through manipulating habitats.
Rob’s study is looking at the fuel loading in the riparian areas that also happen to coincide with the areas of greatest habitation, particularly around the township of Banff. Treatment options are limited given the narrow window for treatment of wetter environments as well as the difficulty of managing fire in the urban wildland interface.
The next day I spent with Jane Park, Fire & Vegetation Specialist and her offsider Nick Woode in Douglas Fire Plots on the Fairholme Benchlands in Banff National Park. At this site they are surveying to assess if the objectives of a prescribed fire program, conducted 8 years ago, has been achieved. Upward of 160 plots are being surveyed across 5,000 ha of some of the last tracts of intact montane forests in Banff NP. The objective of the prescribed burning is to conserve the old growth Douglas fir trees, including some of the oldest specimens in Alberta, at around 700 years old, by removing the Lodgepole pine trees that have in-filled the forest, and return it to an open woodland/grassland, particularly to provide habitat for grizzly bears and ungulates. A range of ignition techniques were trialled to see what would work best to achieve the prescription.
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| Mt Rundle from the Fairholme Benchlands |
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| measuring the Douglas Fir |
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| a core is taken from 10 dead trees around the plot to analyse later in the office to ascertain if their death was related to the prescribed burning |
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| one of the cores |
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| assessing charring |
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| a new Douglas Fir |
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| one of the old growth Douglas Firs |
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| this fire management regime is no longer current |
Prior to coming to work at Banff National Park earlier this year, Jane had been working at Lake Louise where she was involved in producing a Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System fuel map for Kootenay and Yoho National Parks. To begin, aerial photography was commissioned for the study areas that had a vegetation layer (Vegetation Resource Inventory) applied in a GIS. The vegetation types were then matched to the Canadian system of 16 fuel types. The next step is to ground truth the maps to make sure the desktop portion of the study is validated. It is an ongoing project.
Thanks Rob, Dave, Jane and Nick!
