Ecological benefits of wildfire-resilient communities Wildfire, and more generally, wildland fire is not solely a social disruption and destructive agent of communities. Inevitable wildland fire is both a natural disturbance providing ecological resource benefits as well as a natural hazard resulting in community fire destruction. This dilemma represents a profound management challenge: restoring fire as an appropriate ecological factor at landscape scales without having WU fire disasters. Science reveals wildland fire to have been an important ecological factor in developing and sustaining ecosystems for thousands of years post-Pleistocene, across most North American landscapes (Stewart 2002). As an example, the ecosystems surrounding Lytton are dominated by fire-resistant and dependent plant and tree species that developed with frequent fires at 4 to 50-year intervals. Ironically, the dramatic reduction in wildfire occurrence has led to increased fire intensity, fire size, ecological fire severity and WU fire disasters – the “wildfire paradox” (Arno and Brown 1991; Cohen 2010). 8
Along with lightning, First Nations cultural burning practices contributed to frequent fires that developed landscape patterns with less dense forest patches, less continuity between forest patches, and species sustainable with wildland fire. However, since European settlement, burning under all conditions of fire spread has greatly reduced (Hessburg et al. 2005). Settlement suppressed First Nations burning practices, changed land use practices and attempted to eliminate and suppress wildfires. Science (Finney and Cohen 2003; Cohen 2004; Cohen 2010; Calkin et al. 2014) and the corresponding findings from our Lytton WU fire examination show us that we can create and maintain local ignition resistant HIZ conditions that collectively create an ignition resistant community during extreme wildfire conditions. That is the opportunity now open to us, by re-building Lytton as a model wildfire-resilient community, the role of fire in ecosystems that are dependent upon it can be carefully restored.
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First Nation fire use historically accounted for most area burned in some locations, not lightning. Unknown for this area.
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