Wildfire, Carbon Sequestration & Beetles

Wildfire Danger

With temperatures getting warmer and dryer in the Kootenays, we are well aware of the danger from wildfires.
We know that heavily forested areas can be especially dangerous due to the number of trees present and that logging and clear cutting are touted as a benefit. I have heard professionals say that 'all forests burn', and while this may be true in general, many factors come into play when thinking about wildfires and trees, like aspect, steepness, water, wind direction, insect damage, fuel type, tree size, etc.
(The text below was edited for accuracy by Dr Michael Feller, Forest and Conservation Sciences Department, University of British Columbia)

• In general, intact older forests have an advantage over clear cut areas in that: intact older forests have large canopies and are shaded (and therefore cooler), older forests hold many times more water (and are therefore moister), they have surface fuel that has changed, or is changing to decomposed organic matter through a whole ecosystem of insects and other processes (and therefore is a less ready fuel material), the large trees decrease the likelihood of drying winds passing through and fanning fires, and older trees have a heavy bark that protects them from fire decreasing their likelihood of being killed by fire and more quickly becoming fuel for a subsequent fire.
• The type of trees and their density is a factor when considering fire hazard: If an area consists of very small diameter trees that are closely packed together, with a lot of fuel on the ground, that is prime wild fire area. Small diameter trees close together are often straggly and thin, with small, thin  branches drying out easily and dropping needles for ready fuel. Fire can relatively easily move from the ground up into the tree crowns in young densely-packed trees to become a crown fire, which is the most dangerous type of forest fire.
• "If slashburning follows clearcutting, then the fire hazard drops, but in the absence of slashburning or other fuel modification treatments (currently the norm), then the fire hazard goes up due to more surface fuel (slash). When the post-clearcutting plantation reaches about 15-20 years of age, then the crown fire hazard goes up and remains high for quite a few years. One can most emphatically state that logging will generally not keep the threat of wildfires down, unless fuel treatments are carried out after logging, which is not usually the case. Consequently, the fire hazard generally is higher after clearcutting than in an old forest for many years."

              (Dr. Michael Feller, Forest and Conservation Sciences Department, University of British Columbia)

• Clear cuts are open to the sun and the wind, and can quickly heat up and dry out, and open areas are likely to be used by motorized traffic or others, increasing a risk of human caused fire from recreational activity.
  

---

Beetle-Killed Trees: do they increase Wildfire Danger?

Climate change has had an impact on the type and number of insects that exist in our forest. 
It has been stated by local lumber companies that beetle-killed trees are fire hazards and need to be removed. That was the initial thinking on the situation. But a 30 year study that took place in Oregon and Washington State by Oregon State University members found that beetle killed areas were no more likely to burn than any other forest.
One of the authors of the study states: "The conventional wisdom is that insect outbreaks increase fire activity, either the likelihood or the severity … so when our results showed this pretty consistent pattern of lower severity in places with insect outbreaks — across a wide range of conditions — it was pretty surprising." (Article HERE) Some points from the report:          

“Our analysis suggests that wildfire likelihood does not increase following most insect outbreaks,” said Garrett Meigs, lead author.

These results are consistent with other studies that have investigated the likelihood of fire across the West. For example, a 2015 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by University of Colorado scientists found that despite extensive outbreaks of mountain pine beetles in the Rockies and the Cascades, fires in recent years were no more likely to occur in beetle-killed forests than in forests not affected by the insects.

“Forests will continue to burn whether or not there was prior insect activity,” Meigs and his co-authors write, “and known drivers like fuel accumulation and vegetation stress likely will play a more important role in a warmer, potentially drier future.”  The Ecosphere paper is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES15-00037.1.  Funding support was provided by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program and the USDA Forest Service.

From a BC Government News Release (Sept, 2015):

British Columbia has over 55 million hectares of public forests, of which 22 million hectares are available for logging. Less than 1% is harvested each year. (IE less than 220,000Ha).  The mountain pine beetle infestation has affected over 18.6 million hectares of Interior forests.

This large estimated number obviously has an effect on all aspects related to the forests: the whole eco system, water, plant and animal life, private residents and commercial industry. These stats however, again, do not provide us with the location of the 18.6 million hectares: what percentage of this beetle-kill is in the 'available for logging' timber, and what percentage is in the 'public forests'?  Or, perhaps the government considers them one and the same - that anything public is 'available for logging'.

Carbon, Climate Change and Trees

Trees & Carbon Emissions

Traditionally, BC has been a carbon sink province, the forests and oceans absorb human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.  For the past decade though, we have become a producer of carbon emissions. This excerpt is from a Sierra Club BC article (2015) on Carbon emissions.

"The analysis for 2003 to 2012 shows net B.C. forest emissions of 256 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Net emissions from provincial forests are the result of logging (after accounting for carbon stored in wood products), wild fires, slash-burning and the reduced carbon sequestration capacity of B.C.’s forests as a result of the Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak.
In contrast, from 1993 to 2002, B.C.’s forests were still a net carbon sink: During this period, B.C.’s forests absorbed the equivalent of 70 percent of the cumulative official emissions of the province (629 million tonnes of carbon dioxide)."

Meanwhile, the BC government and the timber companies want the public to believe that cutting down and using more timber is a good thing.
From the Wood First Initiative, BC Government: "Wood is organic, sustainable, natural, and renewable. Using wood can limit climate change due to the reduced energy required to create wood building products and through carbon storage in the wood itself."
In 2009, the BC government, prompted by advances in wood technology, adopted a Wood First Act, requiring that wood be considered in publicly-funded construction to promote a culture of using wood. The building code was also amended to permit higher/taller wood buildings.

From Aug 28, 2016: This article "Millions of Trees on the Way for Ravaged BC Forests" describes the governments new plan: "the province has called for 300,000 hectares of forests damaged by wildfire and pine beetle be rehabilitated over the next five years in order to turn the forests back into a carbon sink. It's titled the Forest Carbon Initiative." 
The idea is that the province might once again become a carbon sink province, instead of a carbon producer, and the planted trees will serve as future harvests for the forest industry. While critics are skeptical at the magnitude and timeline of the project, the forest industry is pleased. John Betts, director of the Western Silvicultural Contractors' Association says "That would be huge...the Carbon Initiative represents the largest commitment the industry has seen out of the government in decades."  Tony Harrison, co-founder of Zanzibar Reforestation says this initiative will "keep the industry stable,...there's a lot of areas in the province that are affected by either beetle or fire that need that kind of work,...I think it's great. I think it's really forward thinking."
But critics of the plan say:"not everyone sees the Forest Carbon Initiative as a sufficient method to combat greenhouse gas emissions in the wake of climate change.  Mark Jaccard, director of the Energy and Materials Research Group at SFU, says planting trees "doesn't cut it... reforesting land that will eventually be harvested doesn't yield any significant results. Carbon sequestered by trees would eventually go back into the atmosphere once the trees are logged, especially when a lot of the excess fibres are burned — a practice that contributed over 7,000 megatons of greenhouse gases in 2014 alone."

Natural Resources Canada realizes the importance of forests: "Canada’s forests cover a greater land area and store more carbon than do the forests of almost any other nation. How Canada manages its forests is therefore a global concern."

More recently, there have been hundreds of articles written worldwide from a range of professionals and organizations (like the United Nations) that make clear that we need to stop cutting down as many trees, and that conventional logging practices need to change drastically in order to protect life on earth. (2019)
From 'The Great American Stand Series' (Sam L. Davis, PhD.)

We cannot solve the climate crisis without our forests. Forests are one of the best ways we have to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, especially older trees, because each year they absorb carbon and store it in their roots, leaves, and wood. We need to improve, restore, and protect our forests across the planet.

Slash Burning, a Waste and a Danger
This article (CBC Jun 2016 Province Wide Slash Burning Sparks Controversy) states that slash burning is a "common forestry practice. Just last year, an estimated five million tons of it went up in flames across the province. The fires are a major contributor to B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions.  In 2012, slash burning accounted for 13% of the province's total greenhouse gas emissions, or eight megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to B.C.'s latest greenhouse gas inventory."

Slash burning above Castlegar, BC. Dec 2016. The column of smoke/steam to the far right is from Celgar Pulp mill.

Tree Growth and Carbon, the Importance of Big Trees
Trees don't stop growing as they get older. They keep growing unless ravaged by fires, insects, lightning or logging. The implications of this 'turns conventional forestry on its head'. In 2014, a study from the journal Nature stated, in part:

... on a tree-by-tree basis, ancient giants are much more effective at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than young trees. “We realize now the big, old trees are the ones pulling carbon most rapidly out of the atmosphere,” Stephenson said. “This maybe puts an exclamation point on the importance of maintaining big, old trees.”

Dawson said more research could reveal whether managing forests so they contain more old trees would help trap more carbon (making the forest a carbon sink).
“Foresters have always assumed you need to be managing for young age, because young trees grow faster than old trees, but they didn’t know trees keep growing,” Dawson told LiveScience. “If you want a forest to be a carbon sink, you may want to manage it to make sure you always have a lot of older trees in it.”