Cutting Through the Myths of Forest Fires in Canada – A Series

From an early age, we have been taught that fire is bad. Nothing good comes from fire, or so we are told, including fire in the wildlands. But when we speak of Canada’s boreal forest, nothing could be farther from the truth. Without fire, we wouldn’t have the boreal ecosystem or, perhaps, any ecosystems at all. We need fire on the landscape, so we must, therefore, learn to coexist with fire.

Join Glenn McGillivray in the first webinar in our series where he will review the many myths and misconceptions surrounding the hazard of wildland fire in Canada. He will discuss current trends with regard to fire, including taking a look at some of the larger wildfire losses Canada has experienced in recent history. He will also look at the work currently being done to better understand how wildland fire enters communities and what can be done to prevent losses of structures during “interface” fire events.

About Glenn McGillivray

Glenn McGillivray is Managing Director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. As a writer and commentator on issues related to insurance, reinsurance, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, his work has been widely disseminated across Canada. Glenn has written more than 295 magazine and journal articles, newspaper essays, publications and blogposts on a range of issues for a broad range of publications. He has also appeared on CBC’s The National and The Exchange, CTV’s Your Morning and Power Play, TVO’s The Agenda, CP24, and CBC Radio’s The Current and Cross Country Checkup, as well as several other television and radio news and interview programs. Additionally, he speaks and lectures regularly on subjects related to the area of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, natural disasters and climate change adaptation.

Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction

Canada’s leading disaster research institute, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), was established by the insurance industry in 1997 as an independent, not-for-profit research and outreach institute to champion disaster resilience in Canada. ICLR is an international centre of excellence affiliated with Western University, London, Ontario. The Institute develops and champions evidence-based disaster safety solutions that can be implemented by homeowners, businesses and governments to enhance their disaster resilience. Visit www.iclr.org for more information.