Table of Contents

1.0        Introduction... 1

2.0        Town of View Royal and Selected CRD Parks. 2

2.1        Study Area. 2

2.2        Topography. 3

2.3        Population and Park Visitation.. 4

2.4        Infrastructure. 4

2.5        Environmental Values. 5

3.0        Fire Environment.. 5

3.1        Fire Weather. 5

3.2        Fuels. 8

3.2.1     Fuel Type Summary. 8

3.3        Historic Ignitions. 10

4.0        The Wildland Urban Interface.. 13

4.1        Vulnerability of the Wildland Urban Interface to Fire. 13

5.0        Community Risk Profile.. 17

6.0        Community Wildfire Protection Planning Process. 18

7.0        Action Plan... 19

7.1        Communication and Education.. 19

7.1.1     Objectives. 19

7.1.2     Issues. 19

7.1.3     Recommendations – Town of View Royal 20

7.1.4     Recommendations – CRD Parks. 21

7.2        Structure Protection.. 21

7.2.1     Objectives. 21

7.2.2     Issues. 21

7.2.3     Recommendations – Town of View Royal 24

7.2.4     Recommendations – CRD Parks. 25

7.3        Emergency Response. 25

7.3.1     Objectives. 25

7.3.2     Issues. 25

7.3.3     Recommendations – Town of View Royal 27

7.3.4     Recommendations – CRD Parks. 28

7.4        Training/Equipment 28

7.4.1     Objectives. 28

7.4.2     Issues. 29

7.4.3     Recommendations – Town of View Royal 29

7.4.4     Recommendations – CRD Parks. 30

7.5        Vegetation (Fuel) Management 31

7.5.1     Objectives. 31

7.5.2     Issues. 31

7.5.3     Recommendations – Town of View Royal 37

7.5.4     Recommendations – CRD Parks. 38

8.0        Community Wildfire Protection Planning Background.. 39

8.1        Communication and Education.. 39

8.1.1     Target Audiences. 40

8.1.2     Pilot Projects. 41

8.1.3     Website. 41

8.1.4     Media Contacts, Use and Coordination.. 41

8.1.5     Other Methods. 42

8.1.6     General Messages. 42

8.2        Structure Protection.. 43

8.2.1     FireSmart 43

8.2.2     Planning and Bylaws. 44

8.2.3     Sprinklers. 46

8.2.4     Joint Municipality Cooperation.. 46

8.2.5     Structured FireSmart Assessments of High Risk Areas. 46

8.3        Emergency Response. 46

8.3.1     Access and Evacuation.. 47

8.3.2     Fire Response. 47

8.4        Training Needs. 48

8.5        Vegetation (Fuel) Management 49

8.5.1     Principles of Fuel Management 49

8.5.2     Maintenance. 57

9.0        References. 59

Appendix 1 – Fuel Type Descriptions. 61

Appendix 2 – Principles of Fuel Break Design... 69

 

List of Figures

Figure 1. Seasonal variability (May-August) in the number of Danger Class IV and V-days within the study area as described by the regional climate of the CDFmm. 6

Figure 2. Summary of seasonal (May-August) high and low drought codes by year for the CDFmm (1875-2005). 7

Figure 3. Average drought code by month during the fire season for Victoria weather station (1979-2003). 7

Figure 4. Graphical example showing variation in the definition of interface. 13

Figure 5. Firebrand caused ignitions: burning embers are carried ahead of the fire front and alight on vulnerable building surfaces. 14

Figure 6. Radiant heat and flame contact allows fire to spread from vegetation to structure or from structure to structure. 14

Figure 7. Wildland urban interface continuum. 15

Figure 8. Photograph showing unrated roofing material present on some homes within the wildland urban interface. 22

Figure 9. Example of a home with wood siding and open deck. 22

Figure 10. Example of a home with open decks and no setback to forest vegetation. 23

Figure 11. Example of a partial perimeter road and interface in Thetis Lake Regional Park and a new subdivision   23

Figure 12. Photo of hazardous fuel type in the study area. 32

Figure 13. Example of municipal website providing fire education information (http://www.chilliwack.com/main/page.cfm?id=627). 40

Figure 14. High surface fuel loading under a forest canopy. 51

Figure 15. Comparisons showing stand level differences in the height to live crown. 52

Figure 16. Comparisons showing stand level differences in crown closure. 52

Figure 17. Comparisons showing stand level differences in density and mortality. 53

Figure 18. Schematic showing the principles of thinning to reduce stand level hazard. 55

Figure 19. Conceptual diagram of a shaded fuelbreak pre treatment and post treatment. 56

Figure 20. Example of evenly stocked, moderate density second growth stand – classified as a C3 fuel type. 61

Figure 21. Example of a moderate to high-density second growth stand of red cedar and Douglas-fir classified as a C4 fuel type. 62

Figure 22. Example of mature forest of Douglas fir and western red cedar – classified as a C5 fuel type. 63

Figure 23. Example of an open Douglas-fir and Arbutus forest – classified as a C7 fuel type. 64

Figure 24. Moist rich site dominated by red alder – classified as a D1 fuel type. 65

Figure 25. Mixed fir/cedar/sword fern site with a deciduous component of red alder and big leaf maple – classified as an M2 fuel type. 66

Figure 26. Volatile shrub dominated fuel type – classified as O1b. 67

Figure 27. Low volatility Herb/shrub dominated fuel type – classified as O1a. 68

 

List of Maps

Map 1. Shows the selected CRD parks and Town of View Royal within the 2 km buffer study area. 2

Map 2. Topographic relief in the study area. 3

Map 3. A comparison of original MOF fuel typing (left) and updated fuel typing for the study area. 9

Map 4. Historic ignitions by size class and cause within the study area. 12

Map 5. Areas of high density wildland urban interface. 16

Map 6. Final overlay of probability and consequence from the Wildfire Risk Management System. 17

Map 7. Overview of access routes in the study area – Note: highlights indicate neighbourhoods or areas with poor access and evacuation routes. 26

Map 8. Overview of hazardous fuel type polygons within the study area. 34

Map 9. Hazardous fuel polygons prioritized for treatment within the study area. 35

Map 10. Existing fuel breaks where deciduous, non fuels, water, or O1a short grass/wetland occurs. 36

 

List of Tables

Table 1. Summary of fuel types based on the total study area. 8

Table 2. Provincial data fire history summary within the study area from 1950 - 2005. 10

Table 3. Provincial data summary of fire cause within the study area. 10

Table 4. Town of View Royal fire history summary within the study area from 1999 - 2007. 11

Table 5. Fuel type polygons that are a priority for treatment consideration. 32

 

1.0                           Introduction

In 2007 B.A. Blackwell and Associates Ltd. were retained to assist the Town of View Royal and the Capital Regional District (CRD) in developing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) for the Town and selected CRD parks. ‘FireSmart – Protecting Your Community from Wildfire’ (Partners in Protection 2004) was used to guide the protection planning process. Within the Town and selected parks (Mt Work, Thetis Lake, Francis/King, and Mill Hill), the assessment considered important elements of community wildfire protection that included communication and education, structure protection, training, emergency response, and vegetation management.

The social, economic and environmental losses associated with the 2003 fire season emphasized the need for greater consideration and due diligence in regard to fire risk in the wildland urban interface (WUI). In considering wildfire risk in the WUI, it is important to understand the specific risk profile of a given community, which can be defined by the probability and the associated consequence of wildfire within that community. While the probability of fire in coastal communities is substantially lower when compared to the interior of British Columbia, the consequences of a large fire are likely to be very significant in communities given population size, values at risk, and environmental considerations.

The CWPP will provide the Town and the CRD with a framework that can be used to review and assess areas of identified high fire risk. Additionally, the information contained in this report should help to guide the development of emergency plans, emergency response, communication and education programs, bylaw development in areas of fire risk, and the management of forest lands adjacent to the community.

The scope of this project included three distinct phases of work:

·         Phase I –Assessment of fire risk and development of a Wildfire Risk Management System to spatially quantify the probability and consequence of fire.

·         Phase II – Identification of hazardous fuel types and estimation of spotting risk.

·         Phase III – Development of the Plan, which outlines measures to mitigate the identified risk through structure protection, emergency response, training, communication, and education.

2.0                           Town of View Royal and Selected CRD Parks

2.1                             Study Area

The Town of View Royal is located at the southern tip of Vancouver Island within the Greater Victoria area. The Town is 1,500 ha in size and encompasses Prior, McKenzie, Pike and Thetis Lakes, and portions of Esquimalt Harbour and Portage Inlet. Several CRD parks adjacent to View Royal were also included: Mt Work, Thetis Lake, Francis/King, and Mill Hill. These parks extend from close to Esquimalt Harbour in the south to Finlayson Arm in the north and encompass 1,583 ha. The total study area includes these areas and a 2 km buffer with a total area of 11,936 ha (Map 1).

Map 1. Shows the selected CRD parks and Town of View Royal within the 2 km buffer study area.

2.2                             Topography

View Royal and the CRD parks are primarily composed of subdued rolling terrain with outcrops of bedrock. The exceptions are Mill Hill Park and the southern portions of Thetis Lake Park, which are composed respectively of 200 and 150 m high bedrock controlled hills (Map 2). The northern portion of the study area contains Mt Work and other small mountains with considerably greater relief than is found in the Town.

 

Map 2. Topographic relief in the study area.

2.3                             Population and Park Visitation

View Royal has a population of approximately 8, 768 people[1]. BC stats data indicates that the population of View Royal has grown by 20.6% between 2001 and 2006. This is rapid growth when compared to the average 5.3% population increase for all of BC over the same period. As of 2006, there were 3,512 private dwellings.

View Royal is primarily a residential community with a mix of urban and rural dwellings. The local economy is comprised primarily of retail, service and recreational activities serving the local and regional community.

Employment Sector2	Total	Male	Female
	4,175	2,180	1,990
Management occupations	430	255	175
Business, finance and administration occupations	790	195	595
Natural and applied sciences and related occupations	290	235	60
Health occupations	265	55	210
Social science, education, government service and religion	430	175	255
Art, culture, recreation and sport	135	45	90
Sales and service occupations	1,110	565	545
Trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations	540	520	25
Occupations unique to primary industry	75	60	20
Occupations unique to processing, manufacturing and utilities	105	85	20

CRD Parks recorded more than 3.5 million visitors in 2006[2]. The most popular of the selected parks is Thetis Lake. In 2002, this park received approximately 173,000 visitors. This rose to 562,832 visitors in 2006[3], making it the third busiest regional park in the CRD. Park use estimates were not available for the other parks assessed under the plan.

2.4                             Infrastructure

Victoria General Hospital is located within the Town of View Royal and is critical to emergency response services in the CRD. Due to the close proximity of other communities, external fire and rescue and ambulance services may also be able to provide assistance for rapid emergency response.

Electrical service to the community comes from a network of transmission infrastructure that runs through the northern portion of the Town, Francis King, Mt Work and Thetis Lake parks. These transmission lines also provide power to a large portion of the CRD including Victoria. A large fire has the potential to impact this service by causing a disruption in network distribution through direct or indirect means. For example, heat from the flames or fallen trees associated with a fire event may cause power outages. Consideration must be given to protecting this critical service and providing power back up at key facilities to ensure that the emergency response functions are reliable.

The Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 14 also run through the Town and are adjacent to several of the parks. Closures of these highways due to smoke or fires caused by spotting in tall grass or scotch broom dominated roadsides would cause considerable disruption to the movement of goods, services, and people.

2.5                             Environmental Values

Environmental values are high in the parks and the Town of View Royal. The study area is defined by the regional climate of the Coastal Douglas-fir moist maritime (CDFmm). The relatively small original extent of the CDFmm and extensive urbanization of the zone has resulted in habitat loss and degradation to these ecosystems. Thetis Lake is one of the few intact reserves of old growth forest in the CDFmm and contains many red-listed ecosystems. Additionally, red-listed Garry oak ecosystems are well represented in the study area. The study area is rich with the aquatic and riparian habitats associated with lakes, wetlands, creeks, and rivers as well as ocean foreshore.

3.0                           Fire Environment

3.1                             Fire Weather

The Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS), developed by the Canadian Forestry Service, is used to assess fire danger and potential fire behaviour. The Ministry of Forests and Range (MOFR) maintains a network of fire weather stations during the fire season that is used to determine fire danger on forestlands within the community. The information is commonly used by municipalities and regional districts to monitor fire weather information provided by the MOFR Protection Branch to determine hazard ratings and associated fire bans and closures within their respective municipalities. Key fire weather parameters summarized as part of the analysis included:

·                 Drought Code: The Drought Code represents the moisture in deep, compact organic matter with a nominal depth of about 18 cm and a dry fuel load of 25 kg/m². It is a measure of long-term drought as it relates to fire behaviour.

·                 Days above Danger Class Rating IV and V: The Danger Class Rating is derived from fire weather indices and has 5 classes: 1) Very Low Danger; 2) Low Danger; 3) Moderate Danger; 4) High Danger; and 5) Extreme Danger.

It is important to understand the likelihood of exposure to periods of high fire danger, defined as Danger Class IV (high) and V (extreme), in order to determine appropriate prevention programs, levels of response, and management strategies. Fire danger within the study area can vary from season to season. The study area lies in the rain shadow of the Vancouver Island and Olympic mountains. Summers are warm and dry and winters are mild and wet.

Fire danger within the study area can vary significantly from season to season. Figure 1 is a compilation of available weather station data within the CDFmm biogeoclimatic unit (representative of the study area) that dates back to1979 and provides a summary of the total number of Danger Class IV and V-days from May through to August of each year. This compilation shows that fire danger can fluctuate substantially between years. On average, the number of Danger Class V-days within the CDFmm is 20 per year. Typically, the most extreme fire weather occurs between late July and the third week of August.

 

Figure 1. Seasonal variability (May-August) in the number of Danger Class IV and V-days within the study area as described by the regional climate of the CDFmm.

A summary of historic drought codes provides a similar comparison to danger class days (Figure 2). A drought code that exceeds 350 is considered high and is associated with high fire behaviour. A drought code exceeding 500 is considered extreme. Based on annual averages, drought codes rarely exceed 500 (Figure 2). A comparison of monthly values reveals that this is attributable to low values for May and June, extending into July (Figure 3). During the month of August, drought code values commonly exceed 500. During this period, fire danger in the study area has typically been high or extreme.

Figure 2. Summary of seasonal (May-August) high and low drought codes by year for the CDFmm (1875-2005).

Figure 3. Average drought code by month during the fire season for Victoria weather station (1979-2003).

 

3.2                             Fuels

Fuel classification was based on the CFFDRS and a summary of fuel type attributes collected in the field. As no Vegetation Resource Inventory (VRI) data was available for the study area, fuel polygons were typed using orthophotographs. To attribute the fuel polygons and aid in polygon delimitation, stand and fuels data was collected during field work. Field checks were primarily located in the core study areas (regional parks and municipal boundary). In total, 153 field checks were completed. This data was incorporated into existing fuel typing for the region. For each fuel type identified in the field a best approximation of the CFFDRS classification was assigned and was supported with a summary of detailed attributes. The Ministry of Forests and Range fuel typing was improved upon and adjusted to incorporate local variation (Map 3).

3.2.1                                                        Fuel Type Summary

Table 1 summarizes the fuel types and areas. A description of each fuel type is provided in Appendix 1.

Table 1. Summary of fuel types based on the total study area.

 

Map 3. A comparison of original MOF fuel typing (left) and updated fuel typing for the study area.

           

3.3                             Historic Ignitions

The MOFR fire reporting system was used to compile a database of fires back to 1950 in the study area. Map 4 shows the ignition locations. The average number of fires per year by decade is as follows: 1950-59 – 15.9; 1960-69 – 22.9; 1970-79 – 5.2; 1980-89 – 2.4; 1990-1999 – 2.8; 2000-05 – 1.8. The most significant fire year in recent history was 1961 when 46 fires were reported in the study area.

Table 2 summarizes the fires that have occurred between 1950 and 2005 in the study area by size class and cause. The total number of fires during this period was 501, of which 97% were the result of human causes. The remaining 3% of fire ignitions were lightning caused. Ninety-six percent of all fires that burned between 1950 and 2005 were smaller than four hectares, while 20 fires were greater than 4 hectares. The largest fire within the Town since 1950 occurred in 1950 and burned an area of 176 hectares.

Table 3 summarizes fire cause by decade. Through the time of record, human caused fires have far out-numbered those caused by lightning. On average, there have been 98.4 fires each decade excluding the current decade (minimum 28 in the ‘90s and maximum 229 in the ‘60s). However, not all fire occurrences within the town are reported to the MOFR. Data from the Town indicates that there have been 208 ignitions have been attended by the fire department since 1999, which suggests that the provincial historic ignition data substantially underestimates the number of ignitions within the study area in recent fire history.

Table 2. Provincial data fire history summary within the study area from 1950 - 2005.

 

Table 3. Provincial data summary of fire cause within the study area.

Decade	Campfire	Equipment Use	Fire use	Incendiary	Juvenile fire setter	Lightning	Misc.	Railroads	Smoker	Grand Total
1950	9	4	17	6	32		34	2	55	159
1960	7		45	13	65	1	32	2	64	229
1970	4	1	1	3	9	5	5	1	23	52
1980	3	1	1	2	4	1		3	9	24
1990	6	2	2	4	1	5	4		4	28
2000	1			5			1		2	9
Total	30	8	66	33	111	12	76	8	157	501

 

Table 4. Town of View Royal fire history summary within the study area from 1999 - 2007.