Does Canada need a national wildland fire strategy

Although wildland fire is important to sustainable forestry in Canada, there is evidence that this is not well recognized outside the fire community. Fire significantly impacts three components of sustainability — people, wood supply, and ecosystems. Mitigating or enhancing any of the three diminishes the other two. Although fire policies attempt to balance the three processes, this is difficult to achieve in practice. Projected escalation of Canadian fire regimes, coupled with the likelihood of decreasing fire bud-gets, heighten the importance of a national discussion on this issue. A three-stage approach to resolve the problem is proposed — revising the fire elements of the National Forest Strategy, developing a National Fire Strategy, and developing criteria and indicators for fire. The paper concludes with recommended steps to implement the process.