In early 2007 the Forest Practices Board began a special investigation of fire hazard assessment and abatement. As a first step, we surveyed all forest licensees in the province harvesting more than 100,000 cubic metres per year and all 12 British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS) business areas.
Although BCTS is not responsible for hazard assessment and abatement activities, with over 1,100 registrants in the BCTS program we decided it would be most efficient to survey only the 12 business areas.
The purpose of the survey was to understand how licensees are meeting their fire hazard assessment and abatement obligations under the Wildfire Act, specifically assessment methods and abatement practices.