Cranbrook residents are asked to help with the creation of a Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan (CWRP) through a short online survey.
Fire and Emergency Services Director Scott Driver says a CWRP is a vital part of securing wildfire grants from the provincial government.
“The plan, in essence, just collects data based on wildfire risk, which would be the density and volume of wood fibre adjacent to the community, the critical infrastructure that we would want to protect from wildfire risks and things like distribution and density of homes,” explained Driver.
“It defines the wildland/urban interface and overlays it over geographical mapping layers with assets, homes and forests.”
Driver says this information is also useful for identifying issues that may need to be addressed.
“This is a large document that looks at the total risk across the community and discusses strategies of addressing that risk,” said Driver.
“We would use it as a tool to plan the wildfire risk reduction activities that we want to take moving forward as a community.”
Cranbrook has been implementing wildfire risk reduction methods for about 15 years, but Driver says there is always room for improvement.
“There are lots of other tools and aspects in terms of wildfire risk that we, as a community, want to look at, like strategies that homeowners and businesses can use,” said Driver.
“There are a lot of issues in terms of wildfires and their impacts on communities that get brought into this plan that we have not typically looked at yet.”
The City has opened a public survey to gauge residents’ understanding of wildfire risks.
“There are a few simple questions in there to help us get a pulse check on where the community is at and where we should start going forward with public education,” said Driver.
Driver is hopeful for the Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan to be ready by the summer.
You can take the online survey here until April 30.
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