By Tom Mark

RDNO Seeks Grant For Wildfire Protection

Dec 15, 2017 | 7:13 AM

The North Okanagan Regional District has applied to the provincial government for a grant to update the Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

Board Chair Bob Fleming says the District is hoping to get as much as 50 thousand dollars.

“So that’s sort of an ongoing effort to try to find ways to get more funding into wildfire mitigation into all the communities. All of our communities have wildfire interface areas and everybody’s looking to try to improve safety in that regard.”

Fleming says a lot of work needs to be done to reduce the fire risk by clearing out fuel, especially after the dry summer.

He credits Silver Star for work it’s been doing.

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“The community up there has been making a fair amount of effort to glade areas to reduce wildfire risk on the mountain. But you can picture similar kinds of efforts need to be made all over different communities.”

The Wildfire Protection Plan hasn’t been reworked since 2008.

“The pressure’s on and I think the government understands that just putting money into just putting out fires isn’t necessarily the best way to go and if you can put some money into trying to prevent and mitigate the severity of forest fires close to communities that’s a much better way to go.

Grant money would be used not only for fuel removal, but in upgrading plans for evacuation corridors and housing for fire evacuees.

by Tom Mark