Wildfires: charting the path forward

[00:00:15] Karine Morin: Welcome to the Big Thinking Podcast, where we explore today’s biggest topics with Canada’s leading researchers. I’m Karine Morin, and I am the President and CEO of the Federation for the Humanities and Social Science.  

[00:00:28] In today’s episode, we dive into the complex world of wildfire research in Canada. Wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense, and understanding their causes and effects is more important than ever.

[00:00:41] What is the science behind them? What is their connection to climate change? And what role does interdisciplinarity play in wildfire research?

[00:00:20] I am joined by Dr. Mike Flannigan, BC Innovation Research Chair in Predictive Services, Emergency Management and Fire Science, and Dr. Shannon Wagner, Vice-President of Research at Thompson Rivers University to answer all of these questions. Let’s dive in!

[00:01:09] Karine Morin: Well, what a wonderful treat to be with two guests, today. And so, to begin our conversation, I'd like to ask you each of you, how did you become interested in wildfire research and also what are the aspects of wildfire that you focus on from a disciplinary perspective? If I could turn to you, Dr. Flannigan.

[00:01:30] Mike Flannigan: I was fascinated by fire from the beginning essentially. My first birthday, I had one candle in the middle of the cake, and I stuck my finger in the flame, and I was so fascinated by it. But unlike most kids, I didn't remove the finger, I left it there and started crying.  

[00:01:51] But after that, I played with matches and almost burned down a town - fortunately it didn't happen - and I've been studying fire my entire life, fire and weather. I call myself a fire guy and it's just a fascinating topic.

[00:02:08] Karine Morin: Dr. Wagner, I understand your specialization broadly speaking, to be about workplace traumatic stress. So, I'm curious, how did you come to focus on wildfires and what has been your disciplinary approach to that study?

[00:02:24] Shannon Wagner: I think in a lot of ways my story's a little bit similar to Mike, certainly not at the age of one, but, in my early teens got interested in fire, all different kinds of fire. But specifically much of my research and experience has been to do with structural fire. So lots of interest around the interface piece of it.  

[00:02:43] I was raised by a volunteer chief. My first job was as a Transport Canada firefighter, so a long history of being involved. And then when I decided to return to academia, I thought, you know, what better to study than fire. And I was very interested in occupational health, so, I’ve spent my career broadly studying occupational health, disability management, and public safety professionals, but with a particular interest on, you know, on fire specifically.

[00:03:09] Karine Morin: So given those respective backgrounds and disciplinary approaches, I'd like to just explore how studying wildfires in all of their aspects can benefit from an interdisciplinary approach. When we tend to think of wildfires in the context of climate change, environmental sciences, resource management, how do you see that taking a social science perspective alongside, or with natural sciences can be beneficial to understanding wildfires and their management?

[00:03:40] Shannon Wagner: So, I mean, with respect to the interdisciplinarity of it, I think one of the things that was really important to me. So currently I'm the Vice President Research at TRU and it's an incredible position for me because I've been able to bring together my personal sort of research background with the administrative, role that I love being in and the creation of TRU wildfire and being able to work with, you know, quite honestly, globally known experts like Dr. Mike Flannigan.  

[00:04:12] And, what became really clear when we started to look at it is, is we have a lot, of national excellence in fire science. You know, we're not where we need to be, we need to know lots more, we need to continue to build fire science, all of the pieces around, forest ecology and predictive science, all of that needs to continue.  

[00:04:33] But we have a pretty good foundation in those areas. Where we haven't built a really strong foundation is in the social science side of wildfire. So, what does it look like to study community and social factors? Community resilience, social factors around personal choices for behavior, evacuations. What does it look like for a community to be evacuated 5, 6, 10 years in a row?  

[00:04:58] We haven't looked really closely at the components that are health related. So what does it look like for wildfire fighters to be exposed to wildfire smoke, you know, career, a career long, or for that matter, communities for five or six years in a row.

[00:05:16] And finally, certainly, last but not least is the components around Indigenous fire stewardship and the importance of really recognizing that fire in the landscape is not, as we all know, it's not a new thing. It's been happening throughout all of history, and so making sure that we're really taking advantage of the millennia worth of knowledge, that Indigenous communities hold and can be complimentary to, western knowledge and, and western science to addressing the, current, you know, significant need in wildfire. So it's, it's a huge component, would be my answer, and interdisciplinarity is our only way forward.

[00:05:59] Karine Morin: I am curious if I can turn back to Dr. Flanagan if you've had opportunities recently to sort of engage with Indigenous communities to hear how they speak of wildfires, wildfire management, and whether that braiding of our western science with traditional Indigenous knowledges is an opportunity that you're looking to foster or have already perhaps even benefited from in your own work.

[00:06:27] Mike Flannigan: So, Indigenous peoples have been living for thousands of years on this landscape, have been using fire for thousands of years, and we have much to learn from their experience. I'm involved in some activity in Northwest Territories and one of the Elders there recently said that after the 2023 fire season that there is no comparison to what happened 2023 with their oral history, which was to me quite amazing and highlights how much climate change is impacting our world and the physical world and the social side as well.  

[00:07:10] And, you know, so we have much to learn, but the landscape is changing, so we'll need both, you know, walking on two legs. We need the Indigenous knowledge, and we need the Western knowledge to move forward together.

[00:07:24] Karine Morin: I think we quickly get a sense how complex forest fires, wildfires are and how therefore it is important to have those many different perspectives, and yet I also know that interdisciplinary work is never straightforward. So, I wanted to turn to some of the challenges and opportunities that you may have each encountered in establishing wildfire as your area of specialization or sort of setting it as a distinct academic activity, a center, an initiative.  

[00:07:56] Maybe I'll turn to you, Dr. Wagner, because you've already alluded at Thompson Rivers University there's a center for wildfire research, education, training, innovation, and then a whole initiative, if I can call it, so TRU Wildfire. Can you tell us briefly about the goals of this initiative as I'm referring to it?

[00:08:17] Shannon Wagner: We have kind of five main goals with respect to TRU Wildfire, one of which is to bring the response agency BC wildfire service and the educational institution together. So really creating that partnership and putting that partnership at the forefront.  

[00:08:31] And the point of the partnership is to really sort of turn how we would typically do things on its head and thinking about the application of new knowledge that's created within an institution, and making sure that we're very much using a sort of research to practice and practice to research kind of approach. So that was really two of our main goals, was to make it really applicable, make it very relevant, do things in a way that puts the partnership at the at the forefront, and then to infuse the information for training and education with research as best we can in real time.  

[00:09:06] The other goals that we have are to create an ecosystem of wildfire. So, a place on campus where folks from across Canada, maybe even globally, know that there's a home for them if they're interested in wildfire. We may not have all the answers, but we probably have someone who knows where you can find the answer, and we would like to be known for being that place that provides a home for individuals - whether they be students, practitioners, response practitioners or faculty and researchers, maybe even government officials that are interested in learning about wildfire and kind of finding other people who are interested in similar kinds of things.

[00:09:42] So we want to create an ecosystem where all of those different types of people who are invested in wildfire come together and things happen sort of serendipitously because they're together and they're engaging.  

[00:09:54] Our other two primary goals was to create a very clear career pathway in wildfire. So, in wildfire and fire generally, we typically see training, mechanisms and then sometimes diplomas. But there has been no academic kind of pathway for people who are interested in fire. So, we wanted to really make sure that we took wildfire and established it as an academic discipline in its own right.

[00:10:22] It needs to be recognized and resourced as one of the kind of most important issues of our time and in the way that we would address any important issue of our time. We need to have it be an academic discipline within an institution. And as part of that creating a full suite of academic and training academic, courses and deliveries, including undergraduate and graduate degrees.

[00:10:46] So we really envisioned like a full spectrum from basic training to advanced training, certificates, diplomas, degrees, graduate building, both our sort of on the ground wildfire fighters right through to our leaders and researchers of tomorrow. And so that's all of the, or sort of the main focuses of TRU Wildfire and the goals that we've set for ourselves.

[00:11:10] Karine Morin: What were the challenges in achieving that? Getting the support, getting the recognition. On the one hand, I would think perhaps it came easily because the case would be pretty convincing, I don't think we can get away from the reality we've had in recent years of the importance that we have to give to wildfires.  

[00:11:32] But Dr. Flannigan, do you want to speak if this was indeed more challenging than you had expected, or whether the opportunity was recognized by all and embraced by all? How did it go?

[00:11:42] Mike Flannigan: So if we go back to the past, you know, it felt like Moses in the wilderness, 40 years of nothing and crying for more research dollars, more investment in fire and to be honest, not much changed. Until realities of the recent decades and really starting with Fort McMurray, that seemed to change the landscape.

[00:12:09] The Prime Minister came, many ministers came out, and you know, it's the costliest disaster in modern Canadian history - and we're talking billions of dollars. And that actually pales compared to the recent Los Angeles fires that we've seen, hundreds of billions of dollars, insurable losses. So that triggered it.

[00:12:29] And of course there's been Lytton in 2021, fires all across the country in 2023. Most recently, Jasper, if we're talking Canada. So these are becoming more intense, more severe, more damaging to communities, and it got the attention of politicians and funding has increased dramatically, but the need for qualified trained, educated people in fire to be the future generation is sorely needed.  

[00:13:07] You know, I'm new to TRU - relatively speaking - but you know, I'm really proud of what's been done and, you know, the priority its been given so that we can address the needs and challenges because we live in a flammable landscape and there will always be fire and because of climate change and other factors, we have to be better prepared for the future.

[00:13:35] Karine Morin: So, I certainly heard there the challenge of getting the attention it deserved and it took some pretty disastrous fires for the public and politicians, decision makers to, to give it the attention it deserves.  

[00:13:48] But Dr. Wagner, do you want to speak now of the opportunities that this has provided to TRU and what you see for, just the province, having that now established as a recognized field of study I think there's something exciting happening there. So do you want to speak a little bit more of those opportunities?

[00:14:07] Shannon Wagner: Yeah, I absolutely, cause this has been, I mean, quite frankly, one of the most exciting things I've ever been involved in in my career. I've never seen a group of people come together with this level of commitment and passion to building something and continuing something, with, as you can imagine, the support of policy makers and others who have recognized the importance of mitigating, responding, preventing all of the pieces that go along with wildfire.

[00:14:39] I also think, and this is both a challenge and an opportunity, so you asked one of the primary challenges. I would say, along with the fact that social sciences and humanities have not traditionally been part of what we consider to be wildfire science, that also means that there's a real deficit, I'm not sure if that's the right word.

[00:14:58] We don't have enough researchers who work in these fields. And so, it's been really challenging to try and recruit folks to do faculty work, for example, because we don't have a whole lot of people who have, who have studied in these areas.  

[00:15:13] And so one of the major opportunities that I see, is the opportunity to really encourage social sciences, health, humanities, Indigenous studies to become engaged with wildfire, to choose to do advanced graduate degrees and become researchers and leaders in these areas. And complement the really good foundation that we've got in the fire sciences. So that's both a challenge and a significant opportunity I think, in the work that we're doing.

[00:15:42] Karine Morin: I also want to come back a little bit to, as it is being established as an academic discipline, that certainly speaks to opportunities of research. And I think Dr. Flannigan, you already alluded to the importance of that knowledge translation, whether that means technologies, knowhow and further on integrated into practice.

[00:16:02] Do you want to speak a little bit to what areas you've been involved in, or just what you see again at TRU wildfire as that opportunity along the continuum of research, knowledge mobilization, knowledge translation, and practice.

[00:16:16] Mike Flannigan: So, I've been around for a while and when I started, we called it "tech transfer" and you know, I was with the government at the time, we worked closely with fire management agencies, Ontario and Quebec for me personally at the time. And lots was accomplished, some of it's built on relationships - matter of fact - it's almost always built on relationships as we move forward.

[00:16:44] And we now call it, knowledge exchange, knowledge translation, mobilization. It's really about partnerships. And working together right from the beginning. I mean, as researchers, we don't want our research to just sit on a shelf if it has practical application, we want to be used and make a difference.  

[00:17:03] And the way you do that is by working with the practitioner, the decision makers at the beginning of the project. And that's what we're trying to do at TRU working with BC Wildfire service and other agencies, Indigenous peoples, to build something that is of use to day-to-day use.

[00:17:26] But it's not simple, okay? You can produce a piece of research, get published, but to actually implement in day-to-day operations, or decision-making, you know, these are complex systems, people don't understand how complex decision-making protocols, operating procedures are for fire management and you just can't take a piece of research and plug it in, it has to be tested and cause they're making decisions that are, you know, potentially lifesaving decisions. So, you have to test it thoroughly. And this takes years, and that's what we're talking about, this relationship right from the beginning of a project to the time it's actually implemented.  

[00:18:10] But to be honest, our academic system does not usually reward that part of the research, that knowledge translation, mobilization, you publish the research, you bring in research dollars, you teach students, and you get, you know, pat on the back.  

[00:18:27] But building things and getting them implemented in the real world often does not get much credit from the academic point of view, but hopefully that changes at places like TRU where we see the benefits of working with the practitioner, the landowner, the rancher, the Indigenous community.

[00:18:50] We need them all be working together, we need all hands on deck to deal with the fire problem we have. And I call it a problem because it's impacting society so much and not just, you know, Jasper, a third of the town burning down, the smoke. The more we find out about smoke, the more we realize how hazardous it is to human health.

[00:19:17] There's recent study out on wildfire smoke and dementia and you know, the global mortality rate from Wildfire, smoke is 1.5 million people. The impact is so significant that we really need to deal with it.

[00:19:33] Karine Morin: It makes me wonder, where's your research? I'm curious if I were to visualize it, how much of it is in a meeting room, how much of it is at your computer? How much of it is in the field? Are you walking by sites that have, where there have been wildfires? Are you walking through forests before there are wildfires? Where does your work take place?

[00:19:56] Mike Flannigan: So personally, my work is mostly computers now, I sometimes live vicariously through some of my students that have field work, but it's mostly computers, working with people. But that doesn't mean that, you know, I'm looking forward or dreading going to Jasper.  

[00:20:15] Jasper's one of my favorite places in the world, and it's changed, and you know, I mean. It's amazing, you can see videos of a fire going through a forest and you think that, you know, in two minutes that site has changed from a mature forest to a brand-new forest. It's a cycle of life. And our fires have, survived and even thrived in a regime of semi-regular high intensity stand replacing, stand renewing fire.  

[00:20:49] That's, that is fire. But is it changing so much that our forests are not recovering and we're seeing hints? That's the case, and this is significant, so our forest could go grasslands or that can burn every year. So, you know, we might lose our forest, but we're not going to lose fire. And so that's why we have to continue to study fire.

[00:21:12] Karine Morin: So, when I was asking this question as to where does this work take place, Dr. Wagner, you've alluded to it, and I think you each have already mentioned the BC Wildfire service and that unique partnership. So, can you describe that a little bit more? And, again, let us know where is this partnership sort of coming to life?

[00:21:29] Where does it appear and where will we find that there is a TRU BC Wildfire Service Partnership, in the context of training and again in the context of that dissemination of know-how and best practices research to knowledge to practice.

[00:21:47] Shannon Wagner: I think the short answer to that is everywhere. So, the partnership is very present, it's in every aspect of what we're doing with TRU wildfire. So right down to the level of, you know, recently we were really happy to welcome a new Director and Associate Director, in Wildfire and BCWS was absolutely at the table for those discussions and those hiring decisions that were made.

[00:22:15] When we talk about training, what does that look like? What does the system look like? It's individuals from TRU and BCWS working together at the same table. When we talk about, what does it look like in terms of using research and innovation, what would that, all of the components are a direct reflection of the partnership.

[00:22:34] I actually, I struggle a little bit to think of any piece that isn't intimately impacted and, and sort of negotiated and collaborated throughout the partnership. So again, you know, I said this is one of the most exciting things I've ever been involved in, and I think part of that is the way that we've been able to do this together in a very real one to one partnership kind of way, which is, I think, pretty unusual for, you know, an educational institution and a government agency to come together in the way that we have and work together over the course of many years successfully to get to the point where we're at now.

[00:23:09] Karine Morin: We're touching on training, and again, I'll give you, I think Dr. Wagner, the opportunity to sort of expand on the various types of trainings because we are, again, emphasizing the complexity of it. We've talked about the sort of disciplinary approaches, but what can be career paths that you are drawing for those who are interested but might have varying interests from the natural side of things, people's side of things, natural sciences, social sciences.

[00:23:41] So what might be some of the career pathways that you're trying to put forward so that people are thinking this was going to be not only fascinating out of their curiosity, but really practical in in terms of potential careers.

[00:23:56] Shannon Wagner: So that's a big question, I'll try and keep it to a few very, sort of key points. And so I would say it breaks down into what I would consider to be sort of four different kind of components. One would be at the very much the basic training level. So how do we get people ready to be responders to fire? How do we give them the basic skills to fight wildfire on the on the line and be safe in doing that?

[00:24:21] The second component would be much more advanced levels of wildfire and, wildfire training that would include things like training somebody to be an incident commander, for example, or giving them advanced weather knowledge and some of these pieces that are required to like run crews or run an incident to be an advanced level, training component.

[00:24:41] The next pieces would be in the academic realm, so certificates, diplomas, degrees. At TRU we currently have five approved certificates in a diploma, and we'll be starting the certificates next fall. All of it is very much laddered, so each of the certificates leads into diploma, to the [...] degrees, for example, and with the idea that these are working individuals, so giving it to them in chunks, that they can sort of enter and exit the system, leaving with a credential, not sort of leaving with a compilation of courses that doesn't have a credential.

[00:25:15] And then the last piece that I would, emphasize is that we envision at TRU, and are currently working on, the development of both, an arts based and a science-based degree. And so really thinking about what does it mean to come up and, and potentially do something a little more, traditional in the wildfire science realm.

[00:25:33] So forest ecology, AI and predictive science, all of those kinds of things. But then on the art side, what does it mean to communicate with media in the midst of an event, how do we encourage communities to take on fire smart principles, all of the things that are on the social sciences and humanities side.

[00:25:52] So very much looking at it from kind of the full gamut and looking forward to eventually, developing some graduate degrees to that are complimentary as well. So lots of stuff.

[00:26:03] Karine Morin: Thank you for that array of opportunities from, again, the sort of career path. But, you were just sort of touching there, that communication piece. And that brings me to think of the public and its understanding of wildfires, and maybe I'll turn to Dr. Flannigan again, what would you say about the public's current understanding of wildfires, and specifically if you see that there are gaps that persists in terms of the current reality and what the public perceives to be happening up there somewhere in the wilderness.

[00:26:40] Mike Flannigan: So it's improving and I spend a lot of time with the media because I think it's important for us to move forward. The public has to be informed so we can make informed decisions. You know, as to where there's still gaps, I think may don't understand how fires enter a community. It's not through that flaming front.

[00:27:05] It's through bits of twig and grass needles, sometimes pine cones, that are burning smoldering, and we call them embers and they can travel long distances. McDougall Creek Fire West Kelowna, it jumped Lake Okanagan. I'd been talking to my brother on the east side of the lake in Kelowna saying, don't worry, the fire will never jump the lake, it's never jumped the lake.

[00:27:28] It jumped the lake. So that's one thing. So that's why principals like Fire Smart are so important to reduce the likelihood of those embers catching fire beside your house or actually on your house, depending on your building materials. That's why Fire Smart's so important.

[00:27:48] The other aspect is understanding fires driven by extremes. So the tail wags the dog, 3% of our fires burn, 97% of the area burned. So that's the issue we have, that's the challenge we have, and those occur on days when the fuels are dry, the vegetation and it's hot, dry, and windy, and there's high intensity fire.

[00:28:11] And the public sometimes has the impression that we can put out all the fires all the time, and that's, unfortunately that's not true. If a fire is large and intense, it's not safe for the firefighters to work in front of it. And even using planes isn't effective. Sometimes we can use burnout operations, but the winds are shifting, you can’t do that.

[00:28:33] And what's left is you get out of the way, you evacuate. So it's really about the extremes and, with climate change, we're seeing more extremes and it's happening faster than we thought. Our [...] have been pretty good, you know, suggesting how warm we're gonna get and how fast, but the impacts, we've underestimated the impacts, and this doesn't apply just to fire, but pre-roll across the board, we're seeing a lot more impacts than we expect.  

[00:29:02] The last thing is I think public expectations are really high in terms of fire. I mean, if you had a test and you got 95%, you'd be pretty happy. Well, fire management is effective 95% of the time on fires, but as I said, it's the extremes, that last 5% are our challenge and our problem, and that's where we're spending a lot of time and effort to deal with the extreme situations.

[00:29:31] Karine Morin: And Dr. Wagner talking about TRU Wildfire, is that aspect of wildfires, the public understanding, and perhaps how community can build their resilience towards wildfire something that is also getting attention, and a priority amongst many others.

[00:29:50] Shannon Wagner: Absolutely. We have the four care core areas that we're looking at in community. And social factors is one of them. And one of the primary pieces that is of interest in that component would be the community resilience piece. So what does that look like for communities and how do we build resilience? How do we encourage fire smart principles? How do we teach communities to understand information, that individuals like Dr. Flannigan have to share, et cetera, et cetera. Absolutely.

[00:30:17] Karine Morin: And it seems though that we might often be thinking in terms of prevention, the fire smart principles. are we starting to learn also about the aftermath? I have very much in mind the community of Jaspers, but they're not the only ones.  

[00:30:32] Are we starting to understand how communities are able to rebuild or conditions that are favorable to accelerating a rebuild? Or, anything else you can tell us about the realities that some of our fellow Canadians are going through after having experienced devastating wildfires?

[00:30:51] Shannon Wagner: I can give a quick answer to that one, then maybe Mike can jump in. I would say that the research is, building in those areas, but it's very much in the beginning phases.  

[00:31:01] And so, my knowledge of the literature would suggest that there's, there's certainly been some sort of post-event work with respect to the Fort McMurray fires, and that's one of the primary ones that you see that kind of post-event literature around, but that we're so recent in some of the major disasters that we've seen that the research hasn't fully caught up. And that's an area of research that just really needs to continue to grow and be considered by researchers moving forward.

[00:31:28] Karine Morin: Dr. Flannigan, did you want to add?

[00:31:30] Mike Flannigan: Sure there's, there is some social science work being done and on evacuations and impacts, and I'd like to mention Dr. Tara McGee, the University of Alberta, Dr. Amy Cardinal Christianson and her work.  

[00:31:46] And I think there's room for lots of work and improvement, and it gets to governance in part and insurance industry in part, your place burns down you, if you had insurance, you have to deal with insurance company, and unfortunately we're, it's way too slow, we have to do better. People in Lytton, Slave Lake, Fort McMurray, how long did they have to wait to get their home rebuilt? And Lytton's just being rebuilt now and that was a 2021 fire. We have to do better.

[00:32:24] Karine Morin: I am, quite astounded at is how much there is to consider, from the perspective of wildfires. And, uh, we are recording this episode about a week after there's been some significant snowfall here in Ottawa. So, summer does still feel far away, but I certainly appreciate that there are experts like yourselves who are dedicated year-round to helping us as a Canadian public, our governments, to better be prepared to manage our forests and the risk of wildfires.

[00:32:53] So our thoughts to all of those who've been affected, all communities affected, and thank you very much for helping us understand a little bit how much there is to learn and, terrific to hear that TRU wildfire is there to assist in that. Thank you very much, Dr. Flannigan and Dr. Wagner for very interesting conversation.

[00:33:13] Shannon Wagner: Thank you for having us.

[00:33:16] Mike Flannigan: Yeah, great to be with you.

[00:33:22] Karine Morin: Thank you for listening to the Big Thinking Podcast. Also, a very sincere thank you to my guests, Dr. Shannon Wagner and Dr. Mike Flannigan.

[00:33:32] I also want to thank our friends and partners at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, whose support helps make this podcast possible. Finally, thank you to CitedMedia for their support in producing the Big Thinking Podcast.

[00:33:48] Join us for next month’s episode, and follow us on your favorite podcast platform so you can catch it as soon as it’s released. À la prochaine!