Parks Canada's fire management team has waited six years for the perfect burning conditions to ignite a prescribed fire at Vine Creek, on the slopes of Mount Greenock.
And although there's no guarantee that wait won't continue, Kim Weir, the agency's fire communications officer, said she has a feeling this is the year for the Vine Creek burn.
鈥淢y spidey senses are tingling,鈥� she said last week while the team was out working on a fireguard in preparation for the 725-hectare prescribed burn it hopes to undertake in mid-May.
For the burn to proceed, a large number of conditions have to align.
鈥淓verything from weather鈥攚inds, air temperature, relative humidity, what鈥檚 happening in the atmosphere, what will smoke do and how will smoke vent鈥攖o what the weather is going to bring in the future and will it help extinguishment.
鈥淎nd forest conditions, how dry everything is from the finer fuels鈥攖he needles and leaves鈥攔ight up to the deeper, 20-30 centimetre down, layer of organic or flammable soil. It鈥檚 really a lot of conditions that have to align,鈥� explained Weir.
The Vine Creek burn is an important one for a number of reasons. It will provide a strategic firebreak for wildfires burning eastward, it will reduce the available habitat for mountain pine beetle and it will help restore both Douglas fir and whitebark pine in the area.
Whitebark pine is listed as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. It has been declining in numbers because of fire suppression, pine beetle outbreaks and a disease called white pine blister rust.
Fires help the species because they open up the forest, allowing in sunlight. 鈥淭hey like a lot of light,鈥� said Weir of the whitebark pine, 鈥渁nd they can鈥檛 tolerate a lot of shade.鈥�
Following a fire, whitebark pine is one of the first trees to reestablish itself, so Parks hopes burning at Vine Creek, 20 km north of Jasper, will increase the species鈥� numbers.
Fire is a natural part of the landscape in Jasper. It wasn鈥檛 until European settlers arrived that it was suppressed, increasing the risk of high intensity forest fires and reducing biodiversity.
鈥淗istorically, we would have had fires burn through [Vine Creek] with fairly low to moderate intensity. They would have happened frequently, but they wouldn鈥檛 have been those hot crazy blazes that we see on TV these days.鈥�
As a result of those fires, a 鈥減atchwork quilt鈥� of different types and ages of vegetation would remain.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 actually, in these parts, the healthiest landscape,鈥� said Weir.
As well as the Vine Creek burn, the fire management team plans to carry out prescribed burns at the Moberly Flats Complex (north of Jasper) and Prairie de la Vache (south of Jasper). There will also be maintenance of the Pyramid Bench community fireguard.
To learn more about fire and vegetation management, check out the 鈥淧arks on Fire鈥� podcast series on the Parks Canada website.
