The Village of Radium Hot Springs is undertaking fuel mitigation work aimed at better protecting the community against wildfires.
The Sinclair Creek Canyon South Slopes Treatment Area is spread across four separate locations around the Highway 93/95 junction.
Mayor Mike Gray says the area was identified for treatment in Radium’s 2024 Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan.
“Many of the areas we’re treating in this current work are areas that we’ve treated before,” said Gray.
“It needs maintenance, we need to go in and take a look to check our village-owned properties.”
Work began on Monday and will have the area south of the pump track closed to the public until the job is completed.
No controlled burning will be used at the target site.
“During treatment smaller diameter trees will be removed and larger trees will be pruned and left behind,” said village officials.
“No slash burning will be done on-site and most woody material will be taken away off-site.”
Gray hopes residents will take this work as a reminder to protect their homes against wildfire as well.
“You need to go and take a look around your property. Just because it was treated five or 10 years ago, it doesn’t mean that it’s FireSafe right now,” said Gray.
Gray says wildfire protection is an ongoing job.
“We hope this current treatment area will be done well ahead of the next wildfire season and we’ll move on to the next one after that and then identify some private lands and help them,” said Gray.
Funding for Radium’s wildfire mitigation work was supplied by the Columbia Basin Trust.
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