Forest Management

Our forest management skills have been applied to a diverse range of forestry projects in British Columbia, Alaska, the Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, Ontario, and Alberta.

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Fire Ecology & Management
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Forest Health
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Forest Planning & Engineering
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Silviculture

Fire Ecology
& Management

Blackwell is at the forefront of North American wildfire risk assessment and management, on both large and small scales. We have worked closely with Provincial government ministries in BC and Alberta to develop landscape-level fire management plans and strategies and provincial datasets, classifications, and standards.

These include the BC Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis (PSTA), BC Fire Weather Zones, and the Alberta Wildfire Management Planning Standard (based on CAN/CSA – ISO 31000-10 Risk Management Principles and Guidelines). We expanded our experience co-developing the Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis by developing a custom Head Fire Intensity Layer that contributes to wildfire risk analyses at the municipal, regional and landscape level.

Our Wildfire Risk Management System provides wildfire threat ratings based on the probability of fire versus the severity of consequences.

This system has been applied by local and regional governments:

  • BC Wildfire Service
  • BC Parks
  • BC Hydro
  • Alberta Agriculture and Forestry
  • U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska
  • Private sector clients
  • Clients from Insurance Industry
  • Forestry companies in BC and Alberta

We have developed leading-edge applications to map and classify fuel types, historical natural fire regimes, and changes in fuel conditions associated with the effects of fire suppression and changes in forest health.

Our Expertise Includes

  • Wildfire Hazard Assessments Completed at Local and Regional Levels
  • Fuel Management Assessment
  • Wildfire Prevention Planning
  • Prescribed Burn Planning
  • Wildfire Behaviour Modeling: (read more)
  • Canadian Fire Behaviour Prediction System
  • Burn P3
  • Prometheus Fire Growth Model
  • FARSITE
  • FlamMap
  • US Behave Plus
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Policy Development: (read more)

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  • Retained by the Association of BC Forest Professionals and Forest Practices Board of BC to develop policy on forest fire and fuel management related issues.
  • Provided written recommendations for the 2003 Firestorm Provincial Review.
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Community Wildfire Protection Planning: (read more)

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  • Over 150 Community Wildfire Protection Plans have been completed for municipalities and regional districts in BC.
  • In Alberta, we have completed numerous FireSmart Wildfire Preparedness Plans for municipal communities and First Nations lands.
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Fuel Management Prescription Development: (read more)

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  • Blackwell strives to produce tailored Fuel Management Prescriptions that meet multiple objectives of local, Provincial and private landowners; whatever they may be.
  • Blackwell has developed assessment methods to evaluate success of fuel treatment prescription and implementation of provincial investments from both the WRR and FESBC programs.
  • Blackwell has coordinated large fuel management programs including Fuel Management Prescription development and treatment for over 1,500 ha with locations in various forest ecosystems within BC.

Forest Health

Blackwell has been working on a broad range of forest health issues and has extensive experience in extension, assessment, monitoring, and strategy development for various jurisdictions, at various scales. Our skills have been applied to a range of projects across North America.

Our Expertise Includes

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Assessment

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  • Coast Forest Region aerial forest health surveys and ground assessments completed annually since 2007 for the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
  • Custom forest health assessments of Metro Vancouver Watersheds, Metro Parks.
  • Forest health assessments and expert advisors on forest health issues related to oil and gas development in BC and Alberta.
  • Development of hazard and risk assessments, and follow-up monitoring for bark beetles, defoliators and root disease throughout BC.
  • Development of a hazard and risk assessment for BC Hydro transmission and infrastructure.
  • Permanent plot establishment for forest health monitoring.
  • Forest health assessments conducted as an integral part of silviculture surveys and treatment recommendations completed on over 100,000 ha in BC.
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Strategic Planning

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  • Treatment prescription and management plan development for various clients.
  • Developed mitigation strategies to manage identified forest health risks to provincial infrastructure.
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Extension

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  • Developed and instructed Forest Health and Forest Protection courses for BCIT’s Sustainable Resource Development Program.
  • Developed a forest health management guide for BC Hydro maintenance crews.
  • Developed a Forest Health Training Manual and Reference Guide for the Yukon Government for use by forest managers and the general public.
windthrow
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Windthrow

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  • Completed various assessments of windthrow hazards and design of windthrow mitigation treatments and danger tree removals.

Forest Planning
& Engineering

Blackwell provides forest engineering services with a professional emphasis on stewardship and sustainable forest practices.

Our Expertise Includes

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Forest Road and Cutblock Design

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  • We design and layout roads and cutblocks to meet the challenges of difficult terrain, visually sensitive areas, and sensitive forest types, while protecting non-timber values.
  • Experience with layout for clearcut and partial cut silviculture systems using cable, aerial and ground-based logging systems.
  • Road rehabilitation and deactivation.
  • Single and multi-layered compliance surveys
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Logging and Falling Supervision

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  • We ensure compliance with client SOPs, logging plans and silviculture prescriptions.
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Long Range Plans

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  • Specialization in liaison work with various resource agencies, First Nations and the public to compile all required information to facilitate total resource and landscape unit planning.
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Forest Stewardship Plans

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  • Experience with preparation and submission, public advertising, First Nations consultation, resource agency referrals and government approval.
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Permit and Lease Applications

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  • Experience preparing and submitting applications for timber marks, cutting permits, burning permits, special use permits and road permits.
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Visual Quality Analysis

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  • Conduct operational planning, harvesting and road compliance audits in addition to evaluations of client SOPs and forest stewardship plans approved under the Forest and Range Practices Act.
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Timber Cruising

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  • Provide all planning and field timber cruising services for various clients on the coast and interior including industrial forestry, mining and research projects.
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Timber Valuation

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  • Provide services to support the sale and/or transfer of both public and private forest land, and license or tenure risk assessments.
  • Experience with development of financial analysis tools to assess both second growth and old growth forests in the valuation of forestland assets.
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Audits

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  • Forest practice audits of full phase forestry - planning, development and silviculture.
  • Liability audits of roads, bridges, shops, log dumps and silviculture accruals.

Silviculture

Blackwell provides silviculture services with a professional emphasis on stewardship, forest ecology, and sustainable forest management. We plan and implement silviculture programs of all sizes and complexities, with a focus on quality control.

Our Expertise Includes

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Silviculture Surveys or Surveying

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  • Silviculture surveys completed for forest licensees (including woodlots), BC Timber Sales, and BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
  • Compliance single and multi-layered surveys including Regeneration Delay and Free Growing surveys.
  • Planting quality and pay plots, brushing efficacy, and stocking survival surveys.
  • Detailed Site Assessments for silviculture treatment prescriptions.
  • Post-harvest assessment surveys.
  • Stocking assessments for wildfire and mountain pine beetle impacted areas and Innovative Timber Sale License (ITSL) eligibility.
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Silviculture Policy Development and Guidance

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  • Site Plan evaluation, development and amendments

  • Expertise in preparing prescriptions using partial cutting and alternative silviculture systems
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Forest Fertilization Planning and Implementation

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  • Completed all aspects of fertilization planning and application on more than 25,000 ha in coastal and interior ecosystems from strategic planning, prescription development, and treatment supervision to results submissions
  • Fertilizer screening trials and foliar nutrient sampling
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Woodlot, Community and Private Forest Management

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  • Ecological-based inventories, prescriptions and plans and valuations.
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Site Preparation, Planting, Brushing & Weeding, Spacing and Pruning

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  • Prescription development
  • Supervision
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Forest Practices Audits

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  • Silviculture survey and program reviews
  • Site Plan and Forest Stewardship Plan reviews
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Thomas 
Corbett

BScF, LFR

Thomas joined Blackwell in October 2024 after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from the University of British Columbia. Thomas’ previous work experiences include four years of tree planting in BC, consulting for Cathro Consulting, contract firefighting in Princeton, BC, and volunteer firefighting in Maharashtra, India.

Since joining Blackwell, Thomas has been involved in FireSmart assessments for homeowners on Bowen Island and has completed his training as a qualified Local FireSmart Representative. Moving forward, he will be a part of the firm’s fertilization team, participating in aerial forest health flights and landscape level fertilization plans and implementation in all phases from reconnaissance through operational planning, treatment supervision, quality assurance, and reporting.

Thomas is planning to register as a Forester-In-Training in the near future, working towards a Registered Professional Forester designation.

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Joshua 
Sunderwald

BScF, DipTech, LFR

Joshua graduated from the University of British Columbia Forest Resource Management Program and joined B.A. Blackwell & Associates Ltd. in 2024. His previous experience includes a diploma in Forest Resource Technology from Vancouver Island University and 5 years of wildland firefighting with Alberta Wildfire.

Since joining Blackwell, Joshua has been involved with several Community Wildfire Resiliency Plans, fuel management prescriptions, prescribed burn planning, and assessments of Ministry-funded Crown Land Wildfire Risk Reduction (CL WRR) prescriptions and treatments. Involvement has included field data collection, such as wildfire threat assessments, qualitative and quantitative stand description, riparian assessments, and fuel typing; post-field data compilation; and spatial data organization. Additionally, Joshua is a certified Local Fire Representative and has conducted a number of FireSmart Assessments for the District of West Vancouver.

>Joshua is planning to register as a Forester-In-Training in the near future, working towards a Registered Professional Forester designation.

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Matt
Day

DipTech For, SAS

Matt is an accredited silviculture surveyor with 33 years of experience working in the natural resource sector, including over 28 consecutive years focused on silviculture related field work in BC. Matt began his silviculture career working as a tree planter and taking part in other stand tending contracts outside of the tree planting season before becoming a crew foreman and camp supervisor responsible for the day-to-day field operations of silviculture crews working on various reforestation and stand tending projects.

Matt has extensive experience working with tree planting and manual brushing crews and has been involved in planning, logistics, hiring, training and quality control. Matt started carrying out silviculture surveys in 2003 and has since gained many years of experience working as a silviculture survey contract field supervisor, senior surveyor, and crew leader responsible for daily field operations including preparation, planning, logistics, training, and quality control. Matt is experienced in collecting data and completing compilations and prescriptions for a broad range of silviculture surveys and stand tending treatments for a variety of clients in both the public and private natural resource sectors.

Matt has worked with Community Forests, First Nations woodlands license holders, private industry licensees, BCTS, and MFLNRORD to carry out silviculture field work in numerous Forest Districts. Matt has conducted surveys in the Cariboo annually since 2016 with extensive experience conducting post-wildfire assessment in managed stands. Additionally, he has conducted post wildfire stocking and salvage surveys in unmanaged stands in the DQU under the Forests for Tomorrow (FFT) program, as well as post-wildfire stocking assessments and reforestation prescription and planting supervision in the Chilliwack District (2015-2016).

Matt has a long-standing working relationship with Blackwell, since 2012, including silviculture and wildfire management/rehabilitation project work under PwC recipient agreements.

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Simon
Murray

B.A., RFT, ISA Certified Arborist, TRAQ

Simon is a Registered Forest Technologist with 34 years of forestry experience. He has extensive experience with forest management, project supervision and contract management. Prior to joining Blackwell in 2023, Simon provided professional consulting services ranging from preparation of site plans, stand management prescriptions, and forestry operations management, to tree risk assessments, forest health surveys, and tree health inspections.

Simon’s years of experience on the BC coast has given him expert knowledge of silviculture practices and coastal terrestrial ecology and a well-developed network of colleagues and contractors in the coastal forest industry. Recent urban forestry work for Blackwell has included extensive tree risk assessment (TRAQ) of hemlock looper impacted trees, layout, and arborist supervision of tree removals in Stanley Park; supervision of tree protection and removal related to mountain bike trail development on Grouse Mountain; and preparation of arborist reports and wildfire hazard assessments for new home construction as required by wildfire hazard Development Permit Area (DPA) bylaws and Building permits.

Simon has also completed tree risk assessments (TRAQ) and windthrow hazard assessments for a Streamside Protection and Enhancement Area in the City of Coquitlam including a prescription for tree removals and modifications. He is also a Riparian Areas Protection Regulation Qualified Professional.

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Kasia 
Humphreys

BScF, LFR

Kasia joined Blackwell in June 2024 after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry Operation from UBC. She has had a number of years of relevant experience prior to joining Blackwell: she has trained and worked as a trail builder in the Kinbasket Region, funded by the Columbia Trust Basin; she was part of a unit crew with BC Wildfire Services in 2020; and, in 2021, she worked as a Silvicultural Assistant, which involved silviculture surveying and report writing for Northpac Forestry Ltd.

Kasia was also an intern for FP Innovations, on their Wildfire Operational Research team, in 2022. In this role, she was responsible for data collection and compilation with their Instand Microclimate project, and research block layout and data collection in Pelican Mountain, Alberta, and Fort Providence, Northwest Territories.

For Blackwell, Kasia has been involved with several Community Wildfire Resiliency Plans, fuel management prescriptions, prescribed burn planning, and assessments of Ministry-funded Crown Land Wildfire Risk Reduction (CL WRR) prescriptions and treatments. Involvement has included field data collection, such as wildfire threat assessments, qualitative and quantitative stand description, riparian assessments, and fuel typing; post-field data compilation; and spatial data organization. Additionally, Kasia is a certified Local Fire Representative and has conducted a number of FireSmart Assessments for the District of West Vancouver.

Kasia is planning to register as a Forester-In-Training in the near future, working towards a Registered Professional Forester designation.

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Cait
van Vliet

B.A., DipTech, TFT, LFR

Cait joined Blackwell in May 2023 after completing a technical diploma from the Forest and Natural Areas Resource Management program at BCIT. Prior to joining the forestry sector, Cait earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Victoria.

Her previous forestry experiences include an internship at UBC’s Malcolm Knapp Research Forest, as well as field work for Infinity Pacific Stewardship Group. These experiences provided her opportunities in public education; silviculture surveying; field data collection and compilation; report development; harvest block design and layout; planting prescription development; site plan development; and fire plan preparation.

For Blackwell, Cait has been involved in the development of multiple fuel management prescriptions and Community Wildfire Resiliency Plans. She was also participated in field work for the fuel treatment assessments of the BCWS Crown Land Wildfire Risk Reduction program. These projects involved: field data collection, such as wildfire threat assessments, qualitative and quantitative stand description, riparian assessments, and fuel typing; post-field data compilation; spatial data organization; map preparation; and document drafting and finalization. Cait has applied experience in various phases of wildfire management, including pre- and post-treatment data collection, fuel typing, FireSmart compliance, access/egress and evacuation corridors, fuel treatment prescription development, structure vulnerability, plan production, and spatial data preparation.

Cait is qualified as a Local FireSmart Representative and currently enrolled with FPBC as a Trainee Forest Technologist, working towards her Registered Forest Technologist designation.