VIU property just east of the Nanaimo Parkway will be the site of a FireSmart clean-up event this spring. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

community effort

Funding aimed at further snuffing out Nanaimo’s wildfire risk

Mar 14, 2020 | 6:55 AM

NANAIMO — A grassroots initiative in Nanaimo is armed with funding to better protect vulnerable neighbourhoods from potential wildfires.

The City of Nanaimo received $25,000 to support a series of FireSmart weekend clean-ups. It’s designed to lessen the risk of forest fires by removing ignitable debris from provincial Crown land and private property.

Nanaimo Fire Rescue asst. chief Brad Wood said volunteers representing Long Lake Heights, VIU and Protection Island received funding for this year’s FireSmart program.

“A few simple steps, a few hours of work here and there is beneficial to the community and ourselves,” Wood told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Wood said while thankfully our forest fire fuels and climate aren’t as ripe for wildfires as compared to regions like B.C.’s interior, he said the risk of a blaze spreading to buildings in Nanaimo is a genuine concern.

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“Once it starts getting into a structure and transfers from structure to structure, that’s when our fire resources will quickly become overwhelmed,” Wood said, who also serves as Nanaimo’s FireSmart coordinator.

A 2016 consultant’s report compiled for the City of Nanaimo showed the region’s forest fire threat was assessed as “very low, low with pockets of moderate.”

Wood said every year the FireSmart program “slowly chips away” at different areas in Nanaimo with an elevated forest fire risk, but admitted community buy-in isn’t as robust as other communities due to the lower risk.

Grants handed out annually across B.C. range between $25,000 and $150,000 depending on the risk a particularly community faces.

More attention to Nanaimo’s susceptibility to wildfires arose during the damaging Nanaimo Lakes fire in Aug. 2018 which scorched 450 acres of forest.

ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes