Assessing and mitigating wildfire risk to woodland caribou recovery projects under current and future climates

Wildfire risk in northeastern Alberta poses a major threat to boreal woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), a threatened species. To address this, COSIA Land EPA partnered with Natural Resource Canada’s Canadian Forest Service to model wildfire risk throughout the COSIA landscape, and specifically the Cold Lake caribou range, under different climate scenarios using Burn-P3, an advanced spatial fire simulation model. Key research questions included: (1) wildfire risk to restored seismic areas, (2) best places to invest in caribou conservation efforts, (3) effectiveness of potential management zones, and (4) how climate change will affect the burn probability for the landscape.

This study found that recent wildfires and waterbodies can temporarily reduce burn probability, offering strategic but short-lived protection for caribou habitat. Targeted mitigation strategies, such as converting coniferous forests to deciduous and reducing ignition sources, were effective within a limited radius, though their impact diminishes with distance and under extreme fire conditions. Large-scale suppression and harvesting could theoretically offer broader protection, but ecological trade-offs and feasibility constraints make localized, flexible, and redundant approaches more practical.