Smoke from slash piles is in the crosshairs of a northern BC resident, who says improvements in how slash burning is managed haven’t erased the issues it poses.
“We’ve been trying to address the slash smoke problem here in the Bulkley-Nechako region for 15 years or more,” says Ray Chipeniuk, a Smithers resident who has won previous battles against forest industry practices.
“Every fall, in particular, the logging operators burn tens of thousands of slash piles, as a result of which smoke blankets the whole area, sometimes without intermission, for weeks on end,” he explains.
Wildfire smoke has well-known impacts on crop health, delaying maturity and in the case of wine grapes, potentially contributing off-flavours to wine.
Chipeniuk’s focus is on the human impacts, however.
“Many farms in fact are contiguous with Crown land on which logging and slash burning take place,” he says, noting that his own property was once engulfed in smoke from 120 slash piles burning as close as 500 metres.
“For several days, the smoke was so bad we couldn’t stay in our house, while visibility outside at times was reduced to less than 50 metres,” he says. “Provincial burning regulations have changed since that time, but they remain a sorely inadequate means of addressing the worst health and safety aspects of slash smoke.”
While the BC Wildfire Service regularly gives notice of slash burning, the forest industry isn’t always as courteous.
Chipeniuk is seeking traction for a class action lawsuit, and is advertising for class members to join the initiative.
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