Portage College is partnering with the community of Fox Creek for an applied research project designed to highlight the role fungi could potentially play in reducing the hazards of wildfires.
The principal investigator for the project is Michael Schulz, who also serves as the Research Chair in Environment and Sustainability in the Boreal Forest at Portage College. He is also an instructor with the post-secondary institution’s Environmental Technologist Diploma program. The project is being funded by several industry partners, with in-kind contributions from the Town of Fox Creek, Portage College, and others.
According to information from Portage College, the objective of the project, which will take place over a period of three years, is to collect species of fungi from a research area within a district of forested lands near the Town of Fox Creek, which is located approximately 259 km northwest of Edmonton and 199 km southeast of Grande Prairie, and about 400 km away from the Lac La Biche Portage College campus.
These fungi samples will be brought back to the environmental sciences labs at Portage College. From there, they will be catalogued and studied for their individual wood-composting capabilities in ideal laboratory conditions.
The fungi that have the best results will be placed back into the forested areas in the Fox Creek area and will target slash piles and areas where waste wood has been accumulated.
“Our research using wood-decomposing fungi is trying to do something that has very practical applications,” said Schulz. “We will be starting right away, doing our first fungus collection this spring.”
According to Schulz, there is a massive diversity in fungi within all categories of fungal groups that can decompose wood in ecosystems.
“Knowing who is doing what, and why they are in the habitats they are in, will help in the practical application we hope to find in this project,” he stated.
As to how fungi can work to reduce the risk of forest fires, the project team lead explained that fungi create moisture in wood as the decomposition process is taking place, and this lessens the burnability of the wood.
The decomposition process also converts the wood into the biomass of the fungi itself, which can be a source of nourishment for small insects and other members of the food chain.
“The hope is that with inoculating the wood with the right fungi, it will help to retain moisture, more so to reduce the flammability as soon as the fungi start to grow and colonize . . . but also a lot is turning into the biomass of the fungus itself, and that biomass is going to be eaten by critters and mites and what not, which are then eaten by larger prey. That’s how most of the nutrient cycle in terrestrial ecosystems start, through that decompositional food chain,” he explained.
Using the fungal decomposition process instead of simply burning the wood piles offers a win-win from standpoints of ecology and safety.
“We see this research helping to promote that ecosystem function rather than putting the deadfall and waste wood into piles and burning it,” he said.
The idea for this project came from similar research that is being done south of the border in Colorado. This initiative, called the Cold Fire Project, focuses on using fungi to reduce wildfire danger to improve the health of forests.
“It's still in progress, but preliminary results seem to be very promising, showing an increase in moisture and much faster decomposition in the fungus-inoculated materials over controls,” said Schulz.
On March 14, representatives of the Alberta government, the municipality of Fox Creek, and Portage College gathered in Fox Creek for a ceremony to begin the research project.
Fox Creek Mayor Sheila Gilmour said the project is a testament to the power of science, collaboration and forward-thinking solutions to address one of the most pressing challenges of recent times – wildfires. To explore these solutions, is a “responsibility we owe to our future generations,” she said.
Samantha Benton, the emergency management coordinator for Fox Creek, said each year, people see the impact that wildfires have on the town, as well as across Alberta.
She noted that statistics from 2023 showed more than 2.2 million acres of Alberta land scorched by wildfires. These wildfires forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, destroyed ecosystems, and cost billions of dollars in damages and restoration.
“These fires are getting bigger, they are burning hotter, and they are spreading faster . . . So, this is more than a research project. This is a potential game-changer for wildfire prevention,” Benton said.
Dr. Donna Feledichuk, the vice president academic and research at Portage College, said the college is excited to be partnering with Fox Creek on this study, saying it is a great example of community, industry and colleges working together to find innovative solutions to complex programs.
“As a rural college located in the Boreal Forest, we have great expertise in the area of environmental science as it relates to forest ecology. We are pleased to play an integral role in applied research in this area,” Feledichuk said.
