we have a prime minister who has
childhood asthma any asthmatic knows
what you put into the air you put into
yourself and yet this Prime Minister
says to do something about climate
changes crazy economics literally crazy
economics
[Music]
summer wildfires in the US and Canada
have burned millions of hectares and
forced evacuations up and down the
continent here in BC were known for a
wet climate but at one point around half
the province was covered in smoke and we
lost more homes and in any year since
2003 now this is happening with the
world facing its hottest year ever
an NBC that meant a strangely mild
winter and a very hot summer with record
droughts and heat so it seems like
climate change could be playing a role
here
we're in BC travelling from here on the
Vancouver coast to the interior to find
out
[Music]
active fire zones are typically hard for
the public to access we were only
allowed into this one because it was
partially contained are there fire crews
like right in that smoky area that we're
seeing crews are in there with hoses and
water right now starting to put out the
fire and that will make us able to call
that area contained once the fire is
brought right down and has been put out
we're hoping to get into the fire zone
today and just in case we do we have to
put on our fire retardant no mech suits
they're bright orange very bold and
they're supposedly very once so they
advised us to kind of wear minimal
clothing underneath so we're driving
off-road right now to close as we can
get up the mountain to the fire zone and
then we're going to walk on foot from
there explain why we're seeing smoke and
not flames it has to do with a lot of
different things the fuel type so the
different kinds of trees and brush and
ground fuels in the area and also the
temperature and relative humidity
if these smokes did get a bit of direct
Sun on them that could easily turn into
flame really quickly and this is a good
example looking around here with a bunch
of dead wood on the ground that is a
fuel type that can carry fire really
well and that carries quite an intense
fire if the fire were to spread this
would generate enough energy to get it
up into the canopies are there a lot of
areas where the burn is so deep that
after the winter comes they'll just
bring up again that has happened in
areas with especially deep Duff layers
so where there's combustible material
that is more than five or ten
centimetres deep then it can certainly
carry over the winter and come back in
the spring how deep you have to dig as
you can see here else was in that deep
just feeling the edges still hot
oh yeah that's really one really have to
use your hand tools open them up is it
easy to work with all the radio chatter
going on no you get used to hearing your
own callsign it's a crucial part of our
whole operation here quesa something
picks up what was the worst here it's
that deep 2003-2009 been kind of one of
those years this year the BC fire
service calls 2003 one of the most
catastrophic fire seasons in the
provinces recorded history severe
droughts led to never-before-seen
conditions that have become more common
since then yep this has been one of the
worst years you see up there outside
resources you know so many provinces
[Music]
when did you start fighting fires in
summer it's a late March early April
we've got rolling pretty early and so
you've been to a bunch of different
fires awesome yeah this is our sixth
deployment and what's it been like
that's been pretty non-stop all over the
province up north and and down to
Pemberton and cut all over the map how
many years have you done this for this
is my fourth season okay and how does
this compare to previous so if it
wouldn't be the hottest and busiest one
I've ever experienced is this a
full-time job for you guys no no season
okay so what do you do in the off season
I just graduated from forestry at UBC
the regular season for most people is
about four months a lot of people are
university students like we were and now
that we're not in school we're here
around eight months out of the year but
this year it's been really busy so we're
probably gonna be gonna be putting in
work until the logs on the fall
[Music]
so we're getting into the helicopter to
go survey the fire here and Oliver
there's a lot of activity right now so
we're gonna try stand in the way of the
fire crews that are battling this but
we're gonna go out there and see what's
going on crews still don't know what
caused this fire but it spread quickly
and breached several guard lines while
we were there a new fire so late in the
summer is unusual but crews have been
seeing new fires start later and later
every year
[Music]
British Columbia has an annual fire
budget of 63 million dollars and so far
this year they've already spent more
than three times that around 200 million
the fires have burned over three hundred
and three thousand hectares that's an
area more than 26 times the size of
Vancouver so Laurie where are we right
now
so we are standing on the boundary of
the Boulder Creek fire which burned this
summer ignited through lightning so here
we're standing in an area that burned at
what we call high intensity so very hot
temperatures when the fire was burning
this is a fire that burned in the
crown's it burned all of the surface
material and it burned down into the
soil and burned up the organics down
below the soil surface as well
many of the fires in our dry interior
forests burned at low intensity fairly
frequently once every 10 to 40 or 50
years and those are the fires with lower
intensity that burned along the surface
damage the trunks of the trees with the
thick bark that those thick bark trees
actually survived and so what you end up
with is the lower severity fires acting
like a cleansing agent those are also
though the fires that we have very very
effectively in the past 60 years of
active fire suppression gone in and
identified them and put them out as soon
as they started and we did that with
good intentions to protect the forest
but what we've ended up doing is
allowing fuels to build up now when you
do get hot dry conditions and a
lightning strike now you have much more
fuel and it's kind of the difference
between a campfire in a bonfire if we're
going to adapt to climate change and
adapt and accept that fire is an
important part of our ecosystems we have
to let more fires burn and we have to
actually cut some trees to eliminate
some of the fuels to control the fire
behavior this is a nice example also
where the fire burns into that
subsurface so you can see here where the
fires burned down below the roots into
the ground and it's left this white ash
so that's kind of a waxy coating when
the fire burns really hot like this it
creates what we call a hydrophobic soil
so a water shedding soil and so instead
of the water when it starts to rain
again infiltrating into the soil and
sinking down into the soil as it would
normally do it begins to have to pool
and then run off along the surface if we
look at the hill slopes around us you
get a tremendous amount of runoff and it
brings with it fine sediments and puts
us at risk in these mountainous burned
areas of debris flows and and flooding
as a result
[Music]
after seeing the huge amounts of damage
the fires have caused at just one fire
zone it's clear more than just the
forest will be affected I want to find
out what that means for the ecosystem
when we talk about habitat degradation
this is one of the key components this
clean clear substrate and water quality
it's really critical to salmon so when
we have events like forest fire or
landslides and you get all that runoff
you get impacts like suffocation of eggs
can the salmon adapt to that ah no uh
you know let's say long-term perhaps yes
salmon could adapt but in the short term
if we're looking at really rapid changes
in temperature they can't change their
behavior quickly enough to keep up with
temperature changes in the watershed
when you lose those cooler permanent
summer streams you lose that run we're
on the territory of the low watt First
Nation there the indigenous people of
this area and we want to find out how
the wildfires have affected them so
we're gonna talk to Jordan who's the
Forester for low watt so this is an
early fire this year that the fire was
started in April
everything was early probably about
three weeks earlier than usual this fire
here went from from being a little spot
burnt that wouldn't pick it up because
there's so much more heat this year
within two hours and got to be about one
hectare in size the smoke was really bad
yeah we could not even see probably a
hundred 100 feet First Nations use small
fires both to generate a food source and
to prevent large destructive fires areas
that have recently burned grows small
plants like berries and mushrooms almost
right away in the ash how long has the
government been stopping a little while
from doing its controlled burns I think
it comes from pretty well around the
1930s to 40 so I mean we get the 75 year
old they've only seen it when they're
when they've been a kid I mean when you
look at it it could benefit the whole
community
even a lot of the non-natives are out
there picking herbs and berries and
mushrooms and everything that grow after
you burned burned through an area I mean
look at all all the green that came up
after this and this happened in April
and for the future are people worried
that this could become the norm this is
the second time that they've seen it get
this dry and it's getting drier you
couldn't even a lie to put a lighter or
match to any of these brushing it
putting it we don't burn it seems that
with all these fires there must be a
connection to climate change but we're
gonna talk to Simon Donner who's a
climatologist at UBC to find out if
that's actually true is climate change
causing the wildfires or climate change
is definitely playing a role in the wild
fires we had fires before there was
climate change and we'll have fires
after this climate change but with the
planet warming and with particularly you
know drier winters and some drier
summers and warmer weather we're gonna
see more frequent and you know larger
wildfires what about the data tells you
that well it's about the increases in
temperature in the West particularly in
Canada where the you know the can is
warming faster than the rest of the plan
on average last week there was a real
reminder to people in BC that climate
change is affecting us as well we had
exactly what we're expecting to see in
the future we had a really warm winter
you know the stuff that fell out of the
sky mostly fell as rain particularly you
know at the lower elevations so you had
scary is it didn't even open and that
then set up the summer for what we
experienced you know we had a very warm
summer but because this note the
snowpack was so poor in the winter it
set things up for forest fires it set
things up for problems in agriculture
when it set things up to the Rotter the
water restrictions we ended up with here
here in Vancouver and what about the
human role in climate change itself and
so this is where things get complicated
when you try to say are humans driving
an increase in wild fires so first you
have to say well other wildfire is being
driven by changes in climate and there's
evidence for that yes and are is climate
change being driven by humans yes so you
go by debt by the change in events you
can definitely you can definitely see a
link it's hard you know to go from
your neighbor driving you know his or
her Hummer to work in concluding that
because they did that you're getting a
fire you know in the Okanagan Valley but
it's it's still a link to chain like
it's there and how do you rate Canada's
effort at the federal level in
addressing this Kayla has really been a
laggard sort of on the international
stage on addressing climate change in a
way it's too bad because it would only
take a little bit of effort by the
federal government to coordinate things
going on across the provinces and really
like have a national impact
we were supposed to talk to Steve
Thompson the BC Minister of forests
about the funding for fighting fires no
response to them and the provinces plans
now that these fires are getting bigger
but he canceled on us at the last minute
when you saw Vancouver covered in smoke
by these wildfires this summer what did
you think you know this is a terrible
thing about being an environmentalist is
while it was horrifying at the same time
I'm going god I hope it lasts because
you keep asking what is gonna be the
trigger to make people realize that
there are some things more important
than just the economy or jobs
I thought Katrina was going to do it in
the United States and I found after
Hurricane Katrina people were asking me
do you think this is global warming like
there was discussion about that that
hurricane sandy came and I thought again
wow you know that New York City that's a
big deal and you look at Beijing or you
look at India and you see the pollution
in the air and you go maybe this will be
the thing but for me I hope it was a
wake-up call it was horrifying it's it's
ironic that once again BC is at the
front line of climate change
I mean British Columbia five years ago
the northern forests of this cut of this
province turned bright red why because
the winters aren't cold enough to
control a parasite that has always been
in the forests but as long as you had
winters in which you had five six days
of 40-below Nature controlled that
parasite but now that our winners simply
aren't cold enough mountain pine beetle
just exploded in our forests turned red
you know look at the contrast between
mr. Obama who went to Alaska which is
oiled country to tell the Alaskans look
we just can't keep exploring and burning
it we've got to get off this and yet the
Prime Minister of Canada spent five days
in the Arctic recently and never once
mentioned climate change how do you
think though he's been able to survive
politically in Canada is that in line
with the views of
scanning II I believe is as tried and
with a great deal of success to suppress
any discussions that will impinge on the
development of Alberta's tar sands so
you shut down you shut down those polar
expeditions that are looking studying
the effect of climate change he's fired
hundreds of government scientists he's
basically saying everything scientists
do for government has to be vetted
through government we've got a pretty
shitty hick history of managing anything
on this earth the idea that we're gonna
take over the planet and manage it is
lunacy but I operate on the sense of
hope the hope that if we pull back
nature will surprise us it's based on
the fact that we don't know enough to
even say it's too late you want to ask
me what's our best path pull back put
fences around people start limiting what
we do to the air the water and the soil
where the problem where the crisis we've
got to pull back