Edo Nyland, retired chief forester of the Yukon, has a few pointed questions about the B.C. government’s treatment of the B.C. Forest Service. In an article published in the Times Colonist newspaper, he claims that in 2016, the provincial government laid off 600 forest rangers and closed their ranger stations.
“The small forest-fire section of the former B.C. Forest Service survived the kill, but what could these few experts do without the large staff of rangers to do the dirty field work? We created a huge problem,” he writes.
He goes on to question the province’s preparedness to use modern fire-fighting aircraft.
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