Aaron Hemens/The Globe and Mail
But singed branches and scorched trunks can make the forest an unstable place where planters are at risk of being injured or killed by falling trees. John Innes, forest renewal B.C. chair in forest management and professor at the University of British Columbia, said the ash on the ground of these sites can also be dangerous for planters because it’s carcinogenic.
Since its launch in 2019, the company has received multiple grants including $1.8-million from Emissions Reduction Alberta and $1.3-million from the federal government as part of its 2 Billion Trees commitment. This spring, the company has plans to plant more than one million trees while visiting wildfire sites such as White Rock Lake, B.C., and Nordegg, Alta.
There are a limited number of studies on the success rate of using drones to grow trees. One study published in Remote Sensing journal in 2021 found only a 20-per-cent or less survival rate for a specific conifer species planted by another drone forestation company as part of a pilot project.