BC Hydro’s Northwest Transmission Line (NTL) runs 344 kilometres from the Skeena Substation near Terrace north to a new substation near Bob Quinn Lake. Clearing of the right-of-way (ROW) began in January 2012. In some sections the trees and shrubs were chipped and spread across the ROW. In September 2013, we conducted fieldwork along a recently cleared section to determine ignition probability and potential fire behaviour in the chipped woody debris. Data collected at that time indicated that the surface layer in the open ROW can dry quickly, making it receptive to ignition and allowing it to sustain low to moderate intensity burns (Hvenegaard 2013).
