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Program in Powell River builds community leaders in fire mitigation

FireSmart workshop educates and motivates participants
qathet Regional District FireSmart coordinator Marc Albert
NEIGHBOURHOOD LEADERS: qathet Regional District FireSmart coordinator Marc Albert leads a recent FireSmart learning session. This weekend the FireSmart Community Champion workshop takes place at Powell River Recreation Complex. It aims to further educate people who are interested in mobilizing their neighbourhoods in fire mitigation knowledge and practices.

As wildfire season has become established as a new normal, not just in British Columbia’s arid interior regions, but increasingly throughout the province, greater awareness of what can be done to decrease the likelihood or severity of fire is the mission of FireSmart, a national education program.

This weekend, the FireSmart Community Champion workshop, hosted by qathet Regional District, takes place with an aim to educate individuals who will potentially share the knowledge with their neighbours and the greater community.

“The workshop is targeted to find neighbourhood leaders, or people who are interested in learning more and motivating their neighbourhoods,” said FireSmart coordinator Marc Albert. “It begins a process of working with neighbourhoods towards implementing FireSmart tactics as a group.”

The half-day program will arm participants with the tools required to motivate residents to work with local fire agency staff and make their homes and communities less vulnerable to wildfires.

The workshop provides five modules with exercises that cover basic wildland/urban interface background information. Wildland/urban interface refers to the areas where nature and human development come together and intermix. The course will also cover the eight-step FireSmart community recognition program.

“Once they become FireSmart champions, I will be able to go and assess their neighbourhood and help them prioritize what some of the biggest hazards would be and what some of the most effective solutions could be,” added Albert.

The FireSmart program was designed in Alberta in the 1990s in response to increasing wildfires in that province at the time. The recommendations are quite stringent and designed for stemming fire risk in highly volatile areas, said Albert. This is good news for a coastal community such as Powell River, he added.

“Implementing these recommendations here, where we generally don’t have the same fire behaviour, you’re looking at some really positive outlooks,” said Albert.

Becoming aware of each individual’s responsibility and what choices and changes can be made collectively go a long way to fighting fires and, ideally, preventing them.

“If I reach out to one person, that’s good, but if you get a neighbourhood, a street or even a group of homes to work together and implement this, it’s just way more effective,” said Albert. “There’s always a lot we can still do.”

The FireSmart workshop takes place Saturday, August 4, at Powell River Recreation Complex. For more information or to register, contact Albert at firesmartpr@gmail.com or 604.414.7839.