By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

City Hall hoping fire prevention grants come through

Sep 18, 2023 | 2:15 PM

City Hall is hoping to do some work to prevent wildfires in the South Bear Creek area should a grant application to the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta be approved.

The city’s Dan Lemieux says as much dead vegetation as possible would be removed from the area.

“Dead trees, dead fall kind of thing. How much work is done on a particular project depends on how much funding is available, so the process we would go through is we would hire a forestry contractor that would go in there and do that work for us.”

Lemieux says some of the work could be done this winter if the application is approved.

“The winter is always a good time to do this kind of work It doesn’t have to wait until the spring.”

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“Preferably, as soon as we get the go-ahead, we would initiate the process to hire a contractor to perform this work. It can be done during the winter.”

The city also sent in an application to do FireSmart public education and home assessments.

Lemieux says the assessments would include recommendations to owners on how to keep homes safe from wildfires.

“These assessments would be done on a voluntary basis.”

“We’d make the service available and anybody that was interested in having someone come in and do an inspection of their property and give them some suggestions, some recommendations, that’s the process we would go through with that one.”

Lemieux says they would do as many assessments as they could afford.

The grants from FRIAA can be worth up to $200,000 each. Successful applicants must match the grant with money or gift-in-kind.

Lemieux says it can take six to eight weeks to hear if a grant was approved. City council approved sending in these applications at its September 5 meeting.