Keyword Forest fire

Dr. Toddi Steelman researches connections between environmental science, public policy, and decision-making. She examines the devastating 2016 fire in Fort MacMurray to learn how we can better protect ourselves from fire seasons that are becoming longer and more dangerous because of climate change. “We’re at some kind of a tipping point in terms of how humans are interacting with their environment,” says Steelman. “What we need to do to learn to coexist better with fire.”

In her work as Winnipeg’s City Forester, Martha Barwinsky talks to a lot of people about trees. “People love trees,” she laughs, saying that many people tell her “cool stories about trees: they remember this tree, and they climbed that tree, or their grandfather planted a tree and now they go and pick apples from it.”

Doug Findlater, mayor of West Kelowna, recalls seeing the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire sweep into town: “It kind of looked like a war movie, with houses blowing up all over the place,” he says. More recently, Canadians watched with horror as the immense Fort McMurray fire of 2016 threatened the city. The Fort Mac fire caused the evacuation of almost 90,000 people and quickly became the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history, destroying 2400 buildings and causing about $10 billion in damage. [1]