Kimberley secures $400,000 to study wildfire risks to drinking water

KIMBERLEY — The City of Kimberley has secured $400,000 to study how wildfires could affect its drinking water supply after nearly eight years of seeking funding.

The effort dates back to the 2018 Meachen Creek fire, which raised concerns about the vulnerability of local water sources.

"You turn on the tap and you have drinking water, and we just kind of assume that's always going to be the case," said Mathieu Bourbonnais, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan and co-director of the Centre for Wildfire Coexistence.

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"But we rely on the environment to provide that for us, and wildfire is really changing how those systems act."

Kimberley's drinking water comes from the Mark Creek and Matthew Creek watersheds.

A severe wildfire could affect both the quality and availability of that water long after the flames are out.

The project aims to identify those risks and find ways to reduce them without creating new problems.

This summer's Matthew Creek wildfire prompted an evacuation alert for the entire city, bringing renewed attention to the risks.

But wildland fire ecologist Bob Gray said that fire is not expected to significantly affect how water moves through the watershed.

He said the areas that burned most severely were relatively small and higher on the slopes, while areas closer to the river experienced lighter burning.

The concern is what could happen if a larger, more severe fire burns through one of Kimberley's drinking-water watersheds.

Bourbonnais said severe wildfires could destroy vegetation and soil, causing increased erosion and sedimentation in streams.

They can also alter snow accumulation and melting processes, changing the timing of water flow into reservoirs.

Bourbonnais's lab at UBC Okanagan is working with the city and Gray to model how fires could behave in the Mark Creek watershed.

The research will examine forest conditions, weather and climate change projections extending to about 2060.

Researchers will also study how a severe fire could affect water quality, streamflows and the timing of water entering reservoirs.

Bourbonnais said much of the province's previous wildfire risk assessment has focused on current or past conditions.

He said scientists still don't fully understand how a worst-case wildfire could affect the hydrology of a large, forested watershed.

"So it's not planning for now, it's planning for that future," he said.

The research will also help identify where forest thinning, harvesting and prescribed burning could reduce wildfire risk.

But Bourbonnais noted those mitigation measures come with their own challenges.

"If we're going to use forestry, or if we're going to use prescribed and cultural fire, that also has an impact on hydrology," he said.

Gray, who has worked on Kimberley's wildfire mitigation efforts for about 20 years, said the modelling will help determine where mitigation should happen and how much work is needed.

He said they need to be carefully planned to avoid increasing erosion, sediment or peak water flows.

"What we need to do with the harvesting is be very intentional with it," Gray said.

The project is expected to take about two years.

The Columbia Basin Trust is contributing $300,000, with the city providing the remaining $100,000.

Its findings will help guide future wildfire mitigation work and provide planning tools that other communities could adapt.

"The risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk of us being proactive," Bourbonnais said.

Your Space Hamilton reported in September that media linked wildfires to climate change more often in 2023, according to a Concordia University study.

With files from CBC News