How this Alberta town plans to fight fire with fungi

A community that was hit hard by wildfires in 2023 is working to reduce the amount of burnable fuel in the forest.

The Town of Fox Creek is planning to fight wildfires before they begin – using mushrooms.

The town’s new Mycological Research Project is exploring how fungi, an existing part of the forest ecosystem, can help reduce wildfire risks.

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“The fungi are around, they’re already helping,” Samantha Benton, Fox Creek emergency and safety coordinator. “Training it and focusing it – it’s a cool idea and a new way to do wildfire mitigation.”

Benton explained the fungi would be cultivated and used to help speed up the break down of dead or diseased trees, which would reduce wildfire fuel and keep soil moist and cool.

“So the forest fires would burn less hot, hopefully less severe,” she added.

The three-year research project is a collaboration between the town, Portage College, Alberta Innovates and Alberta Wildfire.

Benton said the team will be taking a study out of Colorado and tailoring it to Canadian species of tree and fungi.

“We’ll figure out what we have and which works best, and then by the fall, they’re going to inoculate,” she said. “Hopefully by this time next year, we’ll have a good, solid view of how things are going.”

Fox Creek Mayor Sheila Gilmour said wildfire management it top of mind for the remote community after residents were forced to flee for almost three weeks in 2023 due to wildfire.

“As we approach into the next wildfire season, (we) need to be doing everything that we can to mitigate the situation, and that means thinking outside the box,” Gilmour said.

“Just taking down the trees isn’t always the solution, so finding other ways to make it more diverse and sustainable is super important to the community.”

The project is also very exciting, Gilmour added, as Fox Creek will be one of the first communities to turn to mushrooms for help combatting forest fires. If it works, she said, it could help rural communities across the province.

“It’s harder to get resources to smaller, remote communities,” Gilmour said. “This could be a leading-edge technology in the future that is something that can really help as wildfires have become just part of our world.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg