A survey and petition organized by a local retired ecologist shows Whistlerites are eager to pilot an alternative approach to the municipality’s current wildfire strategy.
Dr. Rhonda Millikin presented the petition as well as some of her recent research on wildfire mitigation to elected officials on Tuesday, Nov. 5, not the first time the ecologist has lobbied the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) to rethink its current approach.
As it turns out, Whistlerites seem to share her stance.
The petition, signed by 193 people, calls on the RMOW to stop its current fuel-thinning and FireSmart practices in favour of rainwater catchments, sprinkler systems, and green fuel breaks, “proven methods that protect homes while enhancing the health and resilience of our landscape,” the petition read.
A related poll showed 100 per cent of respondents in favour of piloting an alternative strategy in two local neighbourhoods, while 95 per cent said they were in favour of a corridor-wide pilot program. Twenty-nine per cent of those surveyed said they were disappointed in the RMOW’s current approach, and 80 per cent said they wanted an immediate stop to fuel-thinning and FireSmart in the resort.
“There is no evidence that fuel-thinning and FireSmart stop wildfire in B.C., and not in Coastal wet forest,” Millikin said, addressing council.
The researcher cited Jasper, Alta. and Victoria, Australia as examples of places where the prevailing thinking on wildfire management has been put to the test. In Jasper, Parks Canada and the municipality there have for years removed trees and branches, logged a fire break, carried out controlled burns, and asked residents to clear yard debris to prevent fires. It didn’t prevent this summer’s devastating wildfires that caused tens of millions of dollars in damage and forced mass evacuations. Researchers in Victoria in southeastern Australia analyzed before-and-after pictures of 455 homes “overwhelmed” by fire, Millikin said, and found “even a total disregard for FireSmart—having a person in attendance with water—was the thing that increased the probability of the house surviving the most extreme fire.”
Fuel-thinning adds to the risk in forested landscapes because it “increases solar radiation, the heat, wind speed, oxygen and ambient air temperature, drying the fuels,” compromising Coastal wet forests’ natural resilience to fire, Millkin said.
Instead, she wants the municipality to install sprinklers that would offer humidity to reduce a fire’s heat, and green fuel breaks, a “wall of perennial vegetation” that would block oxygen.
“Healthy vegetation holds the humidity and allows fungi to break down the litter,” Millikin noted.
The award-winning ecologist pointed to Logan Lake, B.C., where Fire Chief Doug Wilson initiated sprinklers on 400 buildings during the 2021 Tremont Creek wildfire that officials there credit with saving the town of 2,000.
"For us, it was the difference between being here and not being here,” Logan Lake Mayor Robin Smith told Glacier Media in a 2022 interview.
The industrial sprinklers, which can be connected to a simple garden hose, cost roughly $80 each.
A former council candidate, Millikin has made it her mission to persuade RMOW officials to consider alternatives to the status quo, going so far as to fund her own research. While mayor and council have been receptive to her messaging, a sea change in how the resort community tackles wildfire does not appear likely anytime soon. In September, council referred Millikin’s study to staff, but Mayor Jack Crompton said policy change was not going to happen based off a single report.
“We’re going to be making policy based on the best information we can collect from experts in the field and for our professional staff here,” he said at at Sept. 10 council meeting.
Work on the RMOW’s fuel-thinning monitoring program is ongoing, expected for completion by 2026. That data will inform whether the municipality’s fire-thinning program will need to be updated.
