By: Noah Korver
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Yukon News
The Carcross/Tagish First Nation and the Yukon government have launched the region’s first wildfire resiliency framework to strengthen wildfire preparedness and help protect the two communities.
The framework outlines 36 priority actions to reduce wildfire risk, improve community resilience and guide long-term planning for future wildfire threats.
“Those actions include a kind of full suite of mitigating measures,” said manager of prevention and mitigation for Yukon Wildland Fire Management (WFM), Luc Bibeau. “Everything from public education and awareness of what folks can do on their private property to reduce their risk, out to potential changes in how we develop new places, to how we manage the forest around the community, and how we work together to respond effectively in the case of an emergency”.
To create the plan, Bibeau says that officials from WFM worked with community members from the Carcros/Tagish First Nation (CFTN) and consultants from the firm Blackwell and Associates to generate a “comprehensive look at what the wildfire risk is, which areas are most vulnerable, what those vulnerabilities look like”.
Once these vulnerabilities were established, WFM, CTFN and Blackwell created a list of recommendations on how to improve these shortfalls, with both CTFN and WFM working to lead various initiatives.
All in all, Bibeau said the process took over a year.
“We collaborated together over the course of about a year and a half, and got to a really good place with the plan, [before] we ultimately endorsed it. Now the key is going to be moving into implementation and actually driving change on the ground”.
Some of the recommendations revolve around education, such as bringing the curriculum on FireSmart principles into the communities’ schools. Others focus more on making the community more fire resistant through on the ground work.
“This could be done through forest thinning or more aggressive use of heavy equipment to develop fuel breaks,” said Bibeau .
He explained how roughly 400 hectares of forest have been earmarked for wildfire fuel reduction work between the two communities.
The creation of this plan makes Carcross/Tagish the seventh region in the territory to develop a wildfire protection framework. WFM has also worked with the communities of Faro, Teslin, Haines Junction, Dawson, and Mayo, while the City of Whitehorse has independently developed its own plan through its Community Wildfire Protection Plan initiative.
Contact Noah Korver at noah.korver@yukon-news.com