By Sean Brady
Kamloops This Week
A Thompson Rivers University researcher is part of a recent report calling for a proactive approach to disasters that combines climate change mitigation and risk reduction.
TRU researcher Mike Flannigan lent his expertise as the university’s research chair for predictive services, emergency management and fire science.
“The nuts and bolts of this report is that disaster risk reduction and climate change applications are two separate entities and the two really didn’t talk to each other very much,” he said.
Flannigan was one of 11 panelists, whose fields include risk management and reduction, climate change and emergency management.
The study, which was sponsored by Public Safety Canada, identifies ways in which Canada can better prepare for extreme weather events, which Flannigan said will happen more often.
“Most of our problems are caused by extreme weather. Heat, drought, flooding — it’s extreme conditions that cause all the problems. With climate change, we’re seeing a lot more extremes,” he said.
Flannigan said one concern with more and more extreme weather is insurance companies becoming unwilling, or charging much more, to insure properties within disaster areas.
He used California as an example, where, in 2018, the Camp wildfire destroyed more than 10,000 homes.
“Insurance companies are going to say, ‘We will not insure you if you build in that location.’ We’re seeing that in California already, which, to me, is about five years ahead of where we are,” Flannigan said.
He recalled the work of the U.S. Forest Service, which approached a number of homeowners living in a box canyon, which Flannigan described as “like a death trap if a fire starts,” due to the lack of escape routes.
After offers by the forest service to clean up properties and reduce fire risks, Flannigan said half of the homeowners told the workers to get off their property.
“You can do all the right things, but unfortunately, we’re as strong as our weakest link,” he said.
The FireSmart program in Canada and British Columbia offers guidelines to clearing properties to reduce fire risk, but Flannigan said it is subject to the same “weakest link” when it comes to the threat of fire, especially without sufficient funding to help complete the mitigation work.
Flannigan said he hopes that funding comes through.
More than 2,000 homes were destroyed in Fort McMurray when a wildfire swept through the northern Alberta city in 2016.
“Insurance came in and gave them money to rebuild. You had the option of using that money for a quartz countertop or to make your home more fire resilient,” Flannigan said.
“I’ll tell you — most people went for the quartz countertop. It shouldn’t be either/or. You should build back to make your home more fire resilient and allow you to get that quartz countertop, too.”
Flannigan added that the report emphasizes the need to use Indigenous and local knowledge in areas where fires and forests need to be managed. He said fire on the landscape was managed for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.
“And, to be honest, we’re getting our butts kicked. We’ve had more area burned and more impacts now than since we started keeping records,” Flannigan said.
Whatever the approach taken, Flannigan said there is “no silver bullet here” that will address the problems caused by extreme weather, more of which is on the way.
“There’s no quick fix here. It’s going to take work, it’s going to take money,” he said.
The report, titled Building a Resilient Canada, can be found online at cca-reports.ca/reports/disaster-resilience.
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