Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation News Release

Williams Lake, B.C.:  Along Palmer Lake Road in the Cariboo Chilcotin, about one and a half hours west of Williams Lake, a new chapter in the life of the forest is unfolding. Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation Ltd. is applying the hard-earned lessons of its Pressy Lake pilot project to another large-scale treatment area. This effort is already making a visible difference not only in forest health, but also economically and environmentally, with the enhanced recovery of burned wood fibre to mitigate the risk of future wildfires. This project is supported through funding from Natural Resources Canada’s Build and Mobilize Foundational Wildland Fire Knowledge Program.

The project in Palmer, or Palmer Project, is addressing two key challenges that arose after the devastating 2017 wildfires: extreme fuel loading of dead, mature trees and excessive natural regeneration of new trees, which will further result in the area being ripe for another catastrophic wildfire in the future. In some areas, over 100,000 pine seedlings are sprouting per hectare, far too many for a healthy, productive forest to thrive.

Read the News Release.