{"id":930864,"date":"2026-10-13T00:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930864\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T00:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:36:19","slug":"how-could-wildfires-affect-kimberleys-drinking-water-a-400k-project-aims-to-find-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/930864\/","title":{"rendered":"How could wildfires affect Kimberley’s drinking water? A $400K project aims to find out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

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Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

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After nearly eight years of seeking funding, the City of Kimberley has secured $400,000 to study how wildfires could affect its drinking water supply.<\/p>\n

The effort dates back to the 2018 Meachen Creek fire<\/a>, which raised concerns about the vulnerability of local water sources.<\/p>\n

Mathieu Bourbonnais, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan and co-director of the Centre for Wildfire Coexistence, said people often take their drinking water for granted.<\/p>\n

“You turn on the tap and you have drinking water, and we just kind of assume that’s always going to be the case,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But we rely on the environment to provide that for us, and wildfire is really changing how those systems act.”<\/p>\n

Kimberley’s drinking water<\/a> comes from the Mark Creek and Matthew Creek watersheds.<\/p>\n

A severe wildfire could affect both the quality and availability of Kimberley’s drinking water long after the flames are out. <\/p>\n

The project aims to identify those risks, and find ways to reduce them without creating new problems for the water supply. <\/p>\n

\"Several<\/p>\n

Smoke rises from the Matthew Creek wildfire near Kimberley, B.C., on July 19. It led to an evacuation alert for the entire city. (B.C. Wildfire Service)<\/p>\n

Wildfire brings risks closer to home <\/p>\n

This summer’s Matthew Creek wildfire<\/a> prompted an evacuation alert for the entire city, bringing renewed attention to the risks facing Kimberley’s watersheds.<\/p>\n

But wildland fire ecologist Bob Gray says the fire is not expected to significantly affect how water moves through the watershed.<\/p>\n

He said the areas that burned most severely were relatively small and higher on the slopes, while areas closer to the river experienced lighter burning.<\/p>\n

The concern is what could happen if a larger, more severe, fire burns through one of Kimberley’s drinking-water watersheds.<\/p>\n

Bourbonnais said that severe wildfires could destroy vegetation and the soil, causing an increase in erosion and sedimentation in streams. <\/p>\n

Also, they can alter the snow accumulation and melting processes, ultimately changing the timing of water flow in reservoirs.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Meachen Creek Falls, located near Kimberley, B.C., is seen in this undated photo. (Tourism Cranbrook)<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to future wildfires <\/p>\n

Bourbonnais’s lab at UBC Okanagan is working with the city and Gray to model how fires could behave in the Mark Creek watershed.<\/p>\n

The research will examine forest conditions, weather and climate change projections extending to about 2060.<\/p>\n

Researchers will also study how a severe fire could affect water quality, streamflows and the timing of water entering reservoirs.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People play on Okanagan Lake amid smoky conditions from the nearby Bald Range wildfire earlier this summer. (Ben Nelms\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Bourbonnais said much of the province’s previous wildfire risk assessment has focused on current or past conditions.<\/p>\n

He said scientists still don’t fully understand how a worst-case wildfire could affect the hydrology of a large, forested watershed.<\/p>\n

“So it’s not planning for now, it’s planning for that future,” he said.<\/p>\n

Reducing fire risk without harming water supplies<\/p>\n

The research will also help identify where forest thinning, harvesting and prescribed burning could reduce wildfire risk.<\/p>\n

But those wildfire mitigation measures come with their own challenges.<\/p>\n

“If we’re going to use forestry, or if we’re going to use prescribed and cultural fire, that also has an impact on hydrology,” Bourbonnais said.<\/p>\n

“So it’s about balancing those two things.”<\/p>\n

WATCH | Testing well water could help in wake of fires:\"\"<\/p>\n

Why testing your well water regularly can help in the wake of a wildfire<\/p>\n

Gray, who has worked on Kimberley’s wildfire mitigation efforts for about 20 years, said the modelling will help determine where mitigation measures should take place and how much work is needed. <\/p>\n

He said they need to be carefully planned to avoid increasing erosion, sediment or peak water flows.<\/p>\n

“What we need to do with the harvesting is be very intentional with it,” Gray said.<\/p>\n

The project is expected to take about two years.<\/p>\n

The Columbia Basin Trust is contributing $300,000, with the city providing the remaining $100,000.<\/p>\n

Its findings will help guide future wildfire mitigation work and provide planning tools that other communities could adapt.<\/p>\n

“The risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk of us being proactive,” Bourbonnais said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-930864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}