Forest Protection

FOREST & PRAIRIE PROTECTION ACT

Application of Act

Forest & Prairie Protection Act & Regulations apply to the entire Province of Alberta. Exceptions are:

  • Cities, towns, villages (summer villages)
  • Federal lands
  • Minister can also enter into an agreement with these exceptions

JURISDICTION

FOREST PROTECTION AREA

Department of SRD mandated authority for wildfire suppression & prevention

  • Maintaining provisions of the FPPA
  • permit issuance
  • suppression
  • costs

NON-FOREST PROTECTION AREA

Local municipal government responsible for

  • Maintaining provisions of the FPPA
  • permit issuance
  • suppression
  • costs

NON-PERMIT AREAS

No permit required for anytime of year

Ministerial Orders still apply to these areas.

Must maintain the provisions of the Act and regulations

Minister does is not usually favor removal of non-permit area requests.

Factors considered:

  • Available fuel in these areas
  • Soil conservation issues
  • Good neighbor policies

GENERAL

Every person who sets a fire under authority of a permit shall

  • keep the permit at the site of the fire;
  • produce and show the permit to an officer on request;
  • keep the fire under control;
  • extinguish the fire before expiration of the permit or upon cancellation of the permit;
  • have a responsible person in attendance at the fire at all times, except as may be otherwise authorized by a forest officer.

FOREST & PRAIRIE PROTECTION ACT FRAME WORK

Forest Protection Legislation

Forest & Prairie Protection Act

Forest & Prairie Protection Regulation – Part I & II

Fire Control Zone Regulations

Forest Protection Wage Rental Regulations

Forest & Prairie Protection Area Regulations

Non Permit Area Regulations

Municipal Government Act

FOREST & PRAIRIE PROTECTION ACT

Fire control agreements Section 6

(1) The Minister may enter into a fire control agreement with any person carrying on any timber, forest, mining, drilling or other industrial or commercial operation over, under, on or adjacent to public land.

(2) The Minister may enter into a fire control agreement

  • (a) with the Government of Canada in respect of Crown land in or adjacent to Alberta under its administration and control, and
  • (b) with the government of any province.

Fire season Section 17

The period from April 1 to October 31 in each year is the fire season for the purposes of this Act.

The Minister may at any time extend or shorten the fire season for any area of Alberta.

Outdoor fires Section 18(1)

No person shall light or cause to be lit an outdoor fire during the fire season on land in a permit area unless that person is the holder of a fire permit.

(4) This section does not apply to an attended outdoor camp fire which has beenlit for cooking or warming purposes.

Fire control plans Section 23

(1) A person carrying on or having charge of a timber, forest, mining, drilling or other industrial or commercial operation on public land shall at the Minister's request submit to him for his approval a fire control plan.

(2) The Minister may, by order, suspend the operations of any person until a satisfactory fire control plan has been submitted to him and the plan has received his approval.

Fire fighting equipment Section 24

A person carrying on or having charge of a timber, forest, mining, drilling or other industrial or commercial operation in or within one kilometer of any public land shall have on hand fire fighting equipment in accordance with the regulations capable of controlling and suppressing any fire that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of the operation.

FOREST AND PRAIRIE PROTECTION REGULATIONS Part I

Deals with the precautionary measures in terms of:

  • Prevention including general, industrial, and campfire precautions.
  • Fuel free buffer zones
  • Equipment & number of tools required on site during industrial activities
  • Forest Area Closures
  • Conscription exemptions
  • Legal forms (permits & orders to remove fire hazard

Industrial Operations - General Precautions

An operator of a sawmill, planing mill, logging camp or any kind of industrial operation in or within 1 kilometre of the forest protection area shall, unless otherwise authorized by a forest officer,

  1. clear of all trees, shrubs and other inflammable material the area in which the mill, factory or operation is being located;
  2. maintain a cleared distance of not less than 30 metres from the mill, factory, structure or operation to the closest standing timber; and
  3. maintain a clear bare mineral soil surface extending at least 8 metres around each burner, pit or other source of fire.

A millsite or logging camp within a forest at which burning of accumulating wastes and debris was carried on at any time between the 1st day of December and the last day of March shall be daily patrolled for fire, commencing at least one week before operations cease at the site and ending not later than the 30th day of June, or during such other period as a superintendent prescribes in writing.

The Superintendent may in writing vary the frequency and period of the patrol provided for by subsection (1).

Both the owner and the operator of the forest operation are responsible for providing the daily fire patrol required by subsection (1).

Oil and Gas Well Precautions

No person may burn in a flare pit any materials produced from an oil or gas well unless

  1. the area around the flare pit has been cleared of all combustible debris within 30 metres thereof or a fireguard has been made in any other manner specified by a forest officer;
  2. a clear bare mineral soil surface extending at least 8 metres around the flare pit is maintained;
  3. the flare pit is so constructed that burning debris cannot escape from the flare pit at any time;
  4. the discharge tip of the flare line is directed into the flare pit at an angle of not less than thirty degrees below horizontal.

No person may burn sour gas at the end of a vertical pipe in a forest unless the distance from the base of the vertical pipe to the closest debris is two and one-half times the length of the vertical pipe, or such other distance as may be prescribed by a forest officer.

Campfire Precautions

A person who desires to light or maintain an outdoor campfire for cooking or warming purposes during a fire season shall take the following precautions:

  1. set the fire on a flat rock, gravel bar, sand or bare mineral soil at a spot relatively clear of vegetation and located near water;
  2. clear the site of all debris down to mineral soil to a radius of at least 1 metre from the edge of the fire;
  3. keep the fire under control and attended to at all times, and
  4. extinguish the fire before leaving the site.

FOREST AND PRAIRIE PROTECTION REGULATIONS Part II

Deals with fire hazard reduction in the form of debris disposal methods and duties of a person summoned to a fire.

Before burning takes place all debris from areas cleared for the purposes of operations listed in section 3 shall be placed in windrows or piles not exceeding 60 m in length and separated by 8 m firebreaks.

Debris Disposal - Logging Operations

A holder of a timber disposition who creates a slash fire hazard because of his operations is responsible for slash hazard reduction to a safe level as determined by a forest superintendent.

Hazard reduction must be completed to the satisfaction of the forest superintendent no later than 24 months after logging, unless otherwise permitted by the Director.

A holder of a timber disposition whose operation utilizes a partial cut method of harvesting shall remove all limbs from trees that are felled and the unused parts of the tree including the limbs shall be scattered and made to lie flat on the ground.

The Director may approve any other satisfactory method of slash disposal for partial cut harvesting.

A holder of a timber disposition whose operation utilizes a clear-cut method of harvesting shall reduce slash hazards to a safe level by one or more of the following methods when approved by the forest superintendent;

  1. scarification with heavy equipment to a standard acceptable to the Director providing that the timber operator agrees to undertake reforestation;
  2. skidding of tree lengths with limbs attached to roadsides or landings with subsequent limbing and the burning of all debris;
  3. prescribed burning of slash windrows, piles or areas;
  4. crushing to an acceptable standard by heavy machinery;
  5. any other method approved by the Director.

 No slash fuel accumulation is permitted within 5 m of the perimeter of the cut area in clear-cutting operations.

Debris Disposal - Sawmills and Planing Mills

The operation of a sawmill or planing mill which is located on public lands and which has an average production volume of 6324 m3 or over in any one year shall dispose of waste slabs, edgings, shavings and sawdust in an enclosed burner approved by the Director.

The operator of a sawmill or planing mill which is located on public lands and which has an average production of less than 6324 m3 and more than 791 m3 in any one year shall dispose of all waste slabs, edgings, shavings and sawdust in an approved shielded, open pit, forced air burner or by any alternate method approved by the Director.

The operator of a sawmill or planing mill which is located on public lands and which has an average production volume of 791 m3 or less in any one year shall dispose of all debris other than sawdust by burning in a pit which meets the approval of an officer, at a safe time between November 1st and March 31st, and shall ensure that all fires are completely extinguished by March 31st.

The operator of a sawmill or planing mill referred to in subsection (3) who wishes to dispose of waste slabs, edgings, shavings or sawdust during the fire season a burner as indicated in subsection (2) will be required.

A fire permit shall be required during the fire season for all debris fires including disposal carried out in burners.

Debris Disposal - Agriculture

Every person who, under authority of a permit, burns on farm land brush or debris resulting from land clearing or agricultural activities shall dispose of the brush or debris in a manner prescribed as follows:

  1. no person shall cause or permit the broadcast burning of grass or stubble until a fire permit has been issued specifying thereon the terms and conditions under which the fire may be set,
  2. every person preparing to burn windrows or piles of brush and debris shall ensure before the fire is set that

(i) where the debris is the result of land clearing operations, the resulting debris is windrowed in not more than 60 m lengths with a 8 m break between each 60 m length;

(ii) the area containing the debris to be burned is completely surrounded by a guard cleared of inflammable material to a width of not less than 15 m,

(iii) no windrow is closer than 25 m to uncleared land or standing hazardous fuels,

(iv) windrows are separated from other parallel windrows by not less than 15 m,

  1. every fire must be controlled and attended by a responsible person or persons approved by an officer or fire guardian,
  2. the following minimum amount of equipment must be at the fire site:

1 axe
2 round-mouth shovels
1 water back pack and hand pump or 4 heavy sacks
1 barrel of at least 200 L of water

such other tools as may be required by an officer,

  1. no person shall set more fires at one time than can be controlled by the people and equipment immediately available.

Forest Protection Division Priority List

  1. Human Life
  2. Communities
  3. Watersheds & Soils
  4. Natural Resources
  5. Infrastructure

Wildfire Management Applications

The following are some of the fire management models and systems used in Alberta.
AVI2FBP
The Fire Behaviour Prediction (FBP) fuel type program (avi2fbp.exe) uses Alberta Vegetation Inventory (AVI) data, AVI2FBP uses an AVI attribute input file and generates either an INFO or dBase output file containing the FBP fuel type codes.
Users first select an AVI source attribute file. This file is processed according to a set of rules that assign the most appropriate FBP fuel type to each polygon. Currently the format of the AVI files that can be processed by this program must match of be re-mapped to the Department of Environment AVI Spatial Database (SDB) format using 2.1 AVI specifications. Some re-mapping functionality is however built into the program (e.g. field naming convention, field width, number of databases or tables, upper and lower case, and in some cases, missing data). This was included to allow the forest industry (i.e. FMA companies and forestry consultants) the capability to use the program for strategic and operational planning.
As AVI data sharing agreements are completed AVI data is provided to the Resource Data Division (RDD). RDD completes QC and normalization of the data. The AVI data is then loaded into a spatial database, Once loaded, the AVI data is used by the Forest Protection Division to update their spatial databases within the Spatial Fire Management System.
Once the FBP fuel type output file is created, it can be either joined or related to an AVI polygon attribute file using ArcView or ArcInfo. It is important that the source AVI attribute file has a unique polygon id do that the join can relate functions can be used.
CroSuM (Crowning Susceptibility Model)
The CroSuM application was developed to provide additional fire behaviour potential information. The FBP System has 16 distinct fuel types. These fuel types do not represent all of the fuel complexes and variability found in Alberta. The AVI2FBP program reclassifies the AVI polygons to a "best fit" FBP fuel type. In some cases, a range of AVI polygons may be assigned the same FBP fuel type. For example, treed muskeg sites and high density, upland black spruce stands may both be assigned as a Boreal Spruce C-2 fuel type.
The CroSuM application provides a high level of differentiation to address some of the problems in FBP fuel typing. Like the AVI2FBP program, the CroSuM application uses AVI attribute data to rank polygons on their crowning potential. A relative scoring system us used based on cover type, density, vertical fuel continuity (i.e. ladder fuels) and crown bulk density. Surface fuels and slope will be incorporated in later versions of the model.
The CroSuM application is particularly useful to spatially identify contiguous areas of high and extreme crowning potential.

VISMAP (Visible Area Mapping Application)
Visible area maps have been created and used by the Forest Protection Division (FPD) for a number of years. They are used to aid in the location of wildfires and to identify blind areas (i.e. areas not seen from the fire tower). Blind areas must be monitored by other means such as air patrols. They are also used to assist in planning activities to determine potential locations for the placement of new towers.
This application depicts areas of visibility within a radius of 40 km. These maps are generated at 1:100,000 scale along with generated contours and other thematic base information. A second map at 1:250,000 scale is generated at a radius of 68 km with the visibility for 49 km overlaid and is placed in the circular firefinder at each fire tower.

Prometheus - the Canadian Wildland Fire Growth Model
Prometheus is the new Canadian Wildland Fire Growth Model (CWFGM) currently being developed by an integrated, multi-disciplinary team of Canadian researchers and managers. Alberta Forest Protection Division is the lead agency of the team.
This state-of-the-art model will allow for operational and strategic assessments of spatial fire behaviour on the landscape. Uses of this model in fire and forest management include: predicting the growth of fires that have escaped initial attack; evaluating the potential threat wildfires could pose to communities, recreational facilities, forest management units, and other values-at-risk; evaluating the fire behaviour potential or burn probability of landscapes created by different forest management strategies and practices; and assessing the effectiveness of various forest and fire management strategies aimed at reducing the threat of large fires. Understanding the behaviour, propagation and effects of wildfire is essential to achieving sustainable forest management. For more information visit the following web site:
SFMS (Spatial Fire Management System)
Initially developed by the Canadian Forest Service, the Spatial Fire Management System (SFMS) is a spatial GIS decision support application. SFMS is linked to FIRES, and its information is used for presuppression preparedness planning to determine fire weather index, ignition probability and number of resources required to meet anticipated fire loads. SFMS is also used to predict fire behaviour spatially by providing head fire intensity, rate of spread, fuel consumption, and fire description. SFMS includes Wildfire Threat assessment capability. The Canadian Wildland Fire Growth Model (Prometheus) will be incorporated into SFMS. These enhancements will significantly improve the business by helping to concentrate resources on those areas at greatest risk of loss. The Wildland Fire Growth Model will also aid in long-term landscape planning.

AWIS (Airborne Wildfire Intelligence System)
The Forest Protection Division integrated the deployment of the Airborne Wildfire Intelligence System on an operational basis during the 2000 fire season. The thermal infrared remote sensing technology delivered through the Airborne Wildfire Intelligence System is used to detect hotspots. AWIS provides additional intelligence by classifying these hotspots (temperature analysis, size, location). Perimeter mapping and vegetation intelligence are also provided. AWIS is developed by Range and Bearing Environmental Resource Mapping Corporation.

AAOMapping
AAOMapping is used to produce map set for the Air Attack Operations at the ProvincialForestFireCenter. These maps will be used by Airtanker pilots and Initial Attack crews. They will assist in navigation to and around forest fires. Constructed in ArcView, the maps consist of a digital terrain model base that shows the valleys and ridge systems in mountainous areas as well as elevation changes in non-mountainous areas of the province. Resources related to fire suppression are the main focus of the map set. The map set consists of six large format E size mapsheets at 1:500,000 scale as well as a booklet showing the same information at 1:600000 scale. The booklet maps are to be used in the close confines of aircraft and land based vehicles.