The Whistler wildfire workshop, themed Wildfire Resilience in Times of Uncertainty, was a success! Over two days, approximately 80 attendees and more than 30 speakers, including officials from Whistler Municipality, First Nation landscape stewards, practitioners, academic researchers, and graduate students from the UBC Okanagan and Vancouver campuses, gathered to discuss various aspects of wildfire risk and management. It was a rewarding time of scholar-practitioner and interdisciplinary exchange, public engagement and networking.

The workshop was collaboratively organized and sponsored by the University of British Columbia Okanagan, Cheakamus Community Forest, and Social Sciences and Humanity Research Council of Canada. One attendee said what they liked about the workshop was the “high level of knowledge and skills in the areas of expertise, excellent collaboration & synergy of differing organizations. Also, it is low-cost or free to attend. The standing room was also great, and lunch was great too. It would be amazing if this was a yearly workshop with a sliding scale cost”.

Workshop attendees on the 6th of May, 2025 (Photo credit: Dr Greg Garrard)

Media coverage of the workshop:

Cheakamus Community Forest hosting wildfire workshop

Whistler confronts wildfire uncertainty with bold new plans and collaborative science

It’s the start of the new year 2025, and the Whistler Wildfire Study team is back to work after a restorative end-of-year break.

We will begin mobilizing the results of this study through various channels throughout the year, including an infographic, a research brief, media reports and more.  These outputs will be available on this website and circulated to members of the public and stakeholders in Whistler.

We will also host a scholar-practitioner workshop session on wildfire risks in Whistler between 6-7 May, 2025 at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, Whistler. The two-day event, which is open to the public, will include a session where the findings of this study will be presented and discussed. The event is being co-organized with the Cheakamus Community Forest. More details to be provided.

Our team will also be presenting the findings of this study at various academic conferences throughout the year, including at the American Association of Geographers conference in Detroit, Michigan, between 24-28 March 2005. Our team is co-organizing a triple session with a total of 14 presentations from scholars across the world on the theme of ‘Critical Geographies of Wildfires’. We will also be presenting the findings of the research at the BC Studies Conference in Vancouver between 2-4 May 2025.