Residents in Rossland’s Iron Colt neighbourhood are tackling wildfire risk on their properties to prepare for next year’s fire season.
A dozen residents attended a two-hour FireSmart Awareness Workshop offered by Rossland’s FireSmart Communities Program on Saturday, Oct. 21.
The question many of the homeowners wanted answers to was — would Rossland and specifically their Iron Colt neighbourhood be vulnerable to the wildfire losses experienced elsewhere in B.C. over the summer of 2017 in the event of a nearby wildfire?
Residents learned to assess the wildfire hazard to their Iron Colt neighbourhood homes and reduce that hazard by eliminating ignition opportunities on their structures and outbuildings and removing or reducing vegetation with a high ignition hazard where it is located close to homes.
One of the participants summarized, “The workshop was great, we learned in a couple of hours the basics on how buildings are ignited by wildfire. One of the big takeaways for us was that even though our homes are relatively FireSmart and the forest beside our neighbourhood is safely distant from most of the homes — the embers generated by nearby wildfires can land on our homes and yards, ignite some of the plantings or objects located close to our homes and those ignitions can spread to the homes fairly easily. We saw how combustible garden mulch can ignite cedar hedge plantings or firewood piles beside our homes and quickly spread to ignite a deck or flare up and break a window allowing flames to enter the home. Fortunately, we also learned how we can easily mitigate those hazards, moving back the bark mulch from the combustible decks and replacing juniper and cedar plantings with less flammable species.”
The FireSmart Awareness Workshop is one of several events that the Iron Colt residents are undertaking in their neighbourhood to reduce wildfire hazard and become a recognized FireSmart Community under the FireSmart Communities Program.
Earlier this year, a few Iron Colt homeowners — led by Iron Colt resident Gonzalo Ansede — formed a FireSmart Board and developed a FireSmart Plan under the provincially funded FireSmart Canada Community Recognition Program. This FireSmart Plan focuses resident efforts to reduce fire hazard on their individual properties.
Ansede and several other Rossland residents attended a FireSmart Community Champion workshop in the spring, receiving training in FireSmart basics about how to reduce wildfire hazard in their areas. Ansede was enthusiastic about the training.
“There were ‘Community Champions’ as the program calls us from three Rossland neighbourhoods; Black Bear and McLeod Avenue East are also participating in the program. In half a day we learned how to assess and reduce the wildfire hazards to our homes as well as how to follow the national FireSmart Communities program to achieve recognition status.”
That training was delivered by Don Mortimer, a consultant with FireSmart Canada and Rossland resident. Mortimer works across Canada and has trained over 700 fire professionals to work as Local FireSmart Representatives with the wildfire vulnerable neighbourhoods in their respective communities.
Mortimer works with the City of Rossland FireSmart Program and functions as the Local FireSmart Representative for the three active FireSmart boards in the Rossland neighbourhoods.
“We’re working with priority neighbourhoods on the City perimeter right now but will add other neighbourhoods where residents express an interest and a wildfire risk does indeed exist,” said Mortimer.
Mortimer is pleased but not surprised with the Rossland response to the FireSmart Communities Program.
“Rossland has a decade-long involvement with FireSmart initiatives and the City has had a Community Wildfire Protection Plan since 2007 – everyone has noticed the steady progress with wildfire hazard reduction by forest thinning on strategically located City and Crown lands within and around the City.”
Mortimer is excited with the FireSmart Communities Program potential to take those FireSmart hazard mitigations from public land onto private properties.
“This program is run by the residents themselves, taking priority actions on simple steps to reduce the wildfire hazard on their homes and in their yards — they work with a fire professional like myself who recommends specific actions and gets them started. Progressively, by staging annual FireSmart Events like the FireSmart Awareness Workshop Iron Colt held on Saturday, the neighbourhood reduces wildfire risk and ultimately achieves national recognition under the FireSmart Communities Program.”
Looking forward, Mortimer sees a strong future for the FireSmart Communities initiative as wildfires become more frequent and intense in response to the effects of climate change on forest conditions.
“The summer of 2017 put wildfire front of mind for most people in B.C. – property owners are increasingly interested in FireSmart mitigations – they’re understanding that wildfires are a natural and necessary occurrence and if they’re going to become more frequent – they want to reduce the hazard to their properties as much as possible.”
Mortimer recommends that homeowners pick up a copy of the FireSmart Homeowners Manual — a comprehensive booklet on reducing the potential impacts of wildfire on your home. The booklet was developed by FireSmart Canada and BC Wildfire Service and is available at Rossland City Hall or can be downloaded online at http://www.bcwildfire.ca/prevention/docs/homeowner-firesmart.pdf Anyone with questions or interest in the Rossland FireSmart Communities Program can contact Don Mortimer, City of Rossland FireSmart Program at dmortimer@telus.net.