We kicked-off the year by introducing a new metric for informing landscape-scale assessments of fire risk.

January also involved innovations on the teaching front. The fire course (REN R 340/740 Wildland Fire Science and Management) was moved completely online for the Winter 2021 term. This involved creating 59 short video modules covering lecture materials. The online format allowed practitioners to take the course remotely (several from Parks Canada) – whose perspectives greatly enhanced class discussions. We were very fortunate to also have Sonja Leverkus sharing her insights as a guest instructor.

In March, we wrapped-up our multi-year fuel management research project funded by Alberta Wildfire through the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science. Results of eight sub-projects are now in various stages of publication:

• Modelling fire perimeter formation in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Forthcoming in Forest Ecology and Management (Macauley et al.)
• Predicting black spruce fuel characteristics with Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS)
• Estimating canopy fuel load with hemispherical photographs: a rapid method for opportunistic fuel documentation with smartphones. 
• Stand-level fuel reduction treatments and fire behaviour in boreal conifer forests
• Three additional papers, two led by Nathan Phelps and one by Hilary Cameron, are currently under review so watch for those in the New Year.

This summer, we also wrapped-up our collaboration with Dr. Ilbin Lee at the School of Business and Post-doc Mostafa Rezaei to study the effect of dispatched resources on initial attack success. Results were shared in conference presentations and a journal paper is currently under review.

As an unprecedented fire season unfolded in BC in July, I shared my thoughts about the urgency of preparing for fire in The Conversation: “We can’t predict the next wildfire disaster – but we can plan for it”.

To that end, we’ve been working closely with Dr. Amy Kim (UBC Transportation Engineering) on wildfire evacuation planning through co-supervision of an MSc student (Abdullah Al Zahid) funded through the Canada Wildfire NSERC Strategic Network and network theme lead Dr. Dave Martell. Through that project, we’ve involved other graduate students on our respective research teams and are tackling the enormous challenges of doing truly interdisciplinary research – merging biophysical fire modeling with transportation engineering.

I spent much of the fall contributing to multiple proposals alongside diverse collaborators in an attempt to secure long-term funding for research in support of innovative wildfire community protection planning. Let's hope at least some of those come through in 2022.

During the fall, we also kicked-off a new project funded by the National Research Council (NRC) to develop a national exposure and hazard assessment method. I’m delighted to announce that Air Forbes will be switching into the PhD program next month to extend her MSc fire pathway research (funded to date by the ICLR) with the new NRC project.

The best highlights of the year definitely involved student success: Kiera Macauley and Hilary Cameron published their MSc thesis research; Richard (Siqi) Mo, Abdullah Al Zahid, Brett Stewart and Sidra Khan all made good progress on their graduate work; and Air Forbes and Kennedy Korkola both excelled at their respective MSc projects, leading them to switch into the PhD program. We also had our first field note authored by an undergraduate student, Jared Randall, who recounted his experiences working with Sonja Leverkus’ team fighting fire in BC this past summer.

One element that surprised me greatly was how deep our fire was burning into the duff layers of the forest floor. After actioning a spot with a pulaski or shovel, it was standard practice for us to cold trail the area. Cold trailing is the process of sticking one’s bare hand into the soil to feel around for heat. If the area was still warm, we would keep on digging until our hands reached cold soil. Oftentimes we found large rocks in the soil, which retained heat long after the fire had moved through the area.
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On one occasion, I dug out a large rock that was quite hot, and, deposited it in a small puddle formed by the hose line. When I rechecked it 45 minutes later, I could still barely pick it up due to the heat. Had I not experienced it first-hand, I would not have thought rocks could retain such intense heat and potentially contribute to drying and reignition of the duff layer. 

​The incredible crew I had the privilege of working with. Huge thanks to Northern Fire WoRx for this experience!  

​I have the greatest respect and pride in my entire crew for their dedication to meeting and exceeding our safety protocols and to upholding COVID-19 preparedness, protection, and prevention in their daily lives.  I also firmly believe that we can continue to keep working during this global pandemic - as we have proven - in a safe way where we conscientiously move about and keep doing what we do best: working as a well-oiled machine no matter if we are on the fireline, chewing through wood on FireSmart fuel treatments, or training in preparation for our next job.  Where there is a will, there is a way forward with intention, awareness, and sensitivity to our surroundings – all it takes is for us to adjust our operating protocols, be creative in our practices and procedures, and to continually think and be aware of the greater good for all.​

Another one of our tasks was to identify and recruit six outstanding keynote speakers – and here again – the diversity objective came into play. As a female who has spent the past 25 years working professionally in male-dominated workplaces ranging from frontline firefighting to senior supervisory roles, I have personally experienced just about every kind of gender-based bullying, discrimination and harassment that you can imagine. I know that real change only happens when individuals with influence and power take it upon themselves to protect, inspire, mentor and support women working in unconventional roles so they can persevere and overcome what are often seemingly insurmountable barriers to their professional success. 

When Deanne returned to the speaker table after her talk, I shook her hand and congratulated her. She looked at me cheerfully and said “I’m retired, I can talk about these things. Someday you’ll be retired too.” 

This is true. ​

Nonetheless, at the conference and on social media, I heard some grumblings about the lack of diversity at the conference.

​By their very nature, conference programs and attendees will mirror their respective communities and we should not expect them to achieve some idealized notion of what that community ought to look like. Real diversity in the wildland fire science and management community is going to take time and will only be achieved through ongoing, everyday commitment to action. That being said, I do believe that events like conferences can serve as catalysts for change – the challenge is to move beyond token representations of diversity that are unlikely to persist in any kind of meaningful or sustained ways after the conference ends. 

Deanne was our only female keynote. We tried unsuccessfully to recruit more women into those roles, but I’m not sure that a 50/50 gender split would have made sense as a target. Superficial representations at conferences won’t change the real disparities or the ingrained barriers. I like to think that highlighting even one inspiring voice can bring about big changes in how the broader community thinks and acts. I hope that anyone who wanted to see more speakers at the conference who were female or Indigenous or social scientists or fire managers or any other under-represented group will make a personal commitment to take real action in the years ahead to support and mentor representatives to fill those gaps at the next conference. But let’s be sure to measure our progress in achieving diversity using meaningful metrics – not token participation numbers at a single event.

The diversity panel I saw in Albuquerque and the one Maria Sharpe organized for our conference provide an excellent template for sustaining the diversity conversation. It can be done – get people together and give them a voice. Then listen.
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As for me – I’m looking forward to attending the next conference rather than planning it. I’d encourage everyone to volunteer for a conference planning role at some point in their careers. It was a great experience and I learned so much from it all. I really am exceedingly grateful that I had a chance to be a part of the planning team for Wildland Fire Canada 2019. It was such an honour to work with so many great people including my program committee members; two very adept conference Co-Chairs, Mike Wotton (Canadian Forest Service) and Bill Cole (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, now retired); Natasha Jurko (Canadian Forest Service) who is my recommendation for the next Wildland Fire Canada Conference Chair; and countless other moderators, special session organizers, speakers, participants and volunteers who stepped-up to ensure the conference was a success. Thank you all so much!

My co-authors continued to work on this research project over the years, completing a paleo pollen analysis for the watershed, tracking vegetation shifts and developing an analysis of paleo history monthly precipitation, streamflow and temperature. They used this data to better understand how climate and fire history were related and changed over the Holocene in the water supply area. The research is helping to inform the Greater Victoria Capital Regional District about the fire activity to expect under climate change conditions. ​

One of the first Keynote speakers for the conference was none other than our own Jen Beverly! Jen did a great presentation on fuel management designs in the boreal forest. She paved the way for other great presentations that focused on the boreal spruce fuel type such as Dan Thompson’s talk on the impact of fuel treatments on fire behavior, Steve Hvengarrd’s talk on mulched fuels in the boreal forest, and Robert Ziel’s talk (another Keynote speaker) on Alaska’s fire environment. With only two days left in New Mexico, it was finally my time to present my own results on using LiDAR to predict forest fuel characteristics in the boreal forest.  Despite being extremely nervous for my presentation, it went alright! And it gave me the opportunity to discuss my research and possible paths it could take me with numerous other scientists and fire behavior specialists. I am so happy that I got the opportunity to attend this conference and talks at LANL. It is inspiring how much wildfire research is going on throughout the world and it is so exciting that I can be a part of even a sliver of it!