The summer of 2013 will mark a decade since British Columbia experienced one of its worst ever wildfire seasons. In 2003 wildland-urban interface fires destroyed 334 homes and made 45,000 people evacuees throughout the province's Interior. The firestorm of 2003 became a turning point in BC's approach to fire preparedness and fire management.

Since then many other communities have suffered similar experiences. Some of the worst include Australia's 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires that killed 173 people, Alberta's 2011 Slave Lake Fire that destroyed almost half the town and this year's Waldo Canyon 'super fire' which was the most destructive in that state's fiery history. Like British Columbia other governments, agencies and planners have had to respond to the growing threat of wildfire.

With these developments in mind the Western Wildfire Conference set for the 10th to 13th of April 2013 in Kelowna, BC, the epicenter of the province's Firestorm 2003, will look back over the last ten years at the strategies implemented, the research done, the lessons learned and the challenges that remain in reducing the wildfire threat to communities in Western Canada and the United States. Expert presenters from Canada, the US and Australia will describe what they have learned from their own observations, research and experience.

Their fields of practice and expertise covered in the program of presentations, panels and concluding field trip will include international perspectives on wildfire, effective home defense in the wildland urban interface, forest fire and fuel management, perspectives on insurance and risk, treatment costs and the economic potential of bio-energy, community acceptance of wildfire treatments and the politics of forest fire policy.

The conference is intended for anyone with an interest in reducing the wildfire threat to communities in Western Canada and the US. The program will be of particular interest and value to provincial, state, First Nations and municipal politicians, government agencies, fire chiefs, emergency planners, regional development officers, foresters, forest and resource companies, tourism and recreation operators, utility managers, eco-system restoration contractors and consultants, equipment suppliers, researchers, insurance agents and the general public.

Hosted by the Western Silvicultural Contractors' Association (WSCA).