How beavers could help fight wildfires
Scientists study how beavers' dams create green firebreaks in wildfire-prone areas
For Canadians, the beaver is more than a buck-toothed rodent — it's a national emblem, etched on nickels and central to the country's origin story. Now, a new study from the U.S. suggests this symbolic animal can make arid Western landscapes more resilient by blunting drought, slowing floods and shielding areas from wildfire with the dams they build.
The study, conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota and published in Nature, analyzed more than 1,500 beaver ponds across 40 streams in the western United States. The study found the size of those ponds wasn't random. Instead, they followed predictable rules tied to dam length, stream power and surrounding vegetation.
DON'T MISS: The Weather Network's wildfire hub
The findings add weight to a growing body of evidence that beavers may be acting as ecosystem engineers, reshaping waterways in ways that benefit not just their own survival, but that of entire landscapes. By slowing streams and spreading water onto flood plains, their dams create lush pockets of habitat that can endure long after fire or drought has swept through.
(Mike Digout/Submitted to The Weather Network)
And as climate change drives longer droughts, heavier floods and fiercer wildfire seasons, researchers and land managers are looking for low-cost, natural solutions to build resilience. The study suggests the Canadian icon could be part of the answer — stepping in where human engineering can't.
Aerial images reveal scope of beaver engineering
To capture the full scope of beaver engineering, the researchers used aerial and satellite imagery to show how clusters of dams working in tandem can transform landscapes.
"Aerial imagery is such a different perspective," Emily Fairfax, assistant geography professor at the University of Minnesota and one of the researchers in the study, told CBC News in an interview.
On the ground, beaver wetlands can take a full day to navigate, she said. But images from the air can reveal a landscape 10 times larger in minutes.
The study mapped more than a thousand beaver ponds in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Oregon, using aerial photos and water-detection algorithms. The ponds that worked together were then grouped into what researchers called "complexes" and analyzed for what environmental factors determined how big the ponds and dams got.
Researchers looked at aerial photos to find beaver dams (shown in red) and the ponds they create. When several ponds cluster together, they form a 'beaver pond complex,' a kind of natural water system that shapes the landscape and helps manage water flow. (Submitted by study researchers/Nature)
The researchers found that climate, soil and landform all played a big role, and that bigger dams reliably created bigger wetlands.
For example, ponds in the northwestern mountains were smaller than those on the Great Plains, likely because the mountains have narrower valleys and different water flow. The work helps explain where beavers can succeed and how big their ponds can get.
Beaver complexes as wildfire 'speed bumps'
Beaver complexes create wetter, greener patches across a landscape. Fairfax likened the phenomenon to giving the landscape a patchwork of fire-resistant "speed bumps," allowing wildlife a place to shelter and giving ecosystems a springboard to recover more quickly.
In a study from 2020, researchers found a visibly stark example of this during the 2000 Manter Fire in California, where an image showed that vegetation near a beaver pond stayed green while the surrounding areas burned.
This recently discovered power of beavers is a sharp turn from their historical role as a prized commodity in Canada's early development. The animal's pelt forged economic ties between European settlers and Indigenous communities and drew settlers westward.
(Pexels)
At one point, over-harvesting of their thick furs drove them to near-extinction, but the animals have since made a remarkable comeback — and not just in Canada. In the U.K., where beavers were driven to extinction during the Middle Ages, their reintroduction has caused environmental damage and made them a nuisance.
Beavers 'can make a difference'
"It's incredibly original," Marc-Andre Parisien, an Edmonton-based scientist who studies how wildfires spread across the landscapes with the Canadian Forest Service, said of the recent beaver pond study. He was not involved with the research.
"There's hasn't been that many studies about the actual ... landscape-level effects," he said. "There's this fuel reduction that's been created by those beavers just by virtue of having those dam and the wetter greener vegetation. So it can make a difference."
However, he notes that given the size and intensity of some of the recent wildfires in Canada, not even the plucky beaver stands a chance of stopping one dead in its tracks.
WATCH: Warmer winters in Canada could spell disaster for wildlife
"You've got a 50-metre wall of flame moving fast across the landscape; you can dump all the water you want in front of it. It's like spitting in a campfire," he said. "I wouldn't say that you can count on beavers to stop big fires ... but they fragment the landscape in terms of the fuel continuity, and you can work with that."
Fire crews can treat beaver ponds as natural anchor points, Parisien said, using the wetter patches to stage operations and slow the spread of flames.
Initially skeptical about the impact of beaver wetlands, he said, "I think [the research has] convinced me of that."
In Ontario, where dozens of wildfires have burned through thousands of hectares of forest this summer, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry said it won't be bringing in more beavers to help.
"Beaver populations are already widespread and abundant in Ontario," spokesperson Sarah Fig said in an email, adding the ministry isn't considering any relocation or reintroduction efforts.
Thumbnail courtesy of Diane Stinson via CBC.
The story was originally written by Colin Butler and published for CBC News.