The Columbia Basin Trust is investing in wildfire mitigation across the region. They’ll disperse $822,406 for 28 projects for their 2018 winter intake of grant recipients from their Wildfire Mitigation program.
Seven of the projects are focused in our region. One of the grants for the City of Castlegar will bring city staff together with Selkirk College students to colaborate on a project. The city gets $20,000 to work with students in the Forestry program to conduct FireSmart assessments for homeowners. They’ll also complete fuel mitigation and treatments on public lands.
The biggest grant in our region goes to the City of Nelson to tackle 4 projects.
They’re getting $103,000 to deliver evacuation training and plans to improve the city’s ability to respond to wildfires. Another Nelson project focuses towards implementing emergency planning to support an evacuation or response to an emergency. Their third initiative is to implement a community preparedness and emergency notification campaign. They’ll also reduce wildfire risks by protecting critical infrastructure and identifying other water sources for firefighters.
The Regional District of Central Kootenay also gets a big piece of the pie.
The RDCK’s grant is worth $100,000 which will allow them to implement the FireSmart Home Partners Program. It will help residents find ways to reduce wildfire risks on their properties.
The City of Rossland is getting a $40,000 grant to promote Wildfire Community Preparedness Day. The event will have activities meant to help residents reduce wildfire hazards and allow the city to run maintenance fuel treatments on previously treated areas.
Residents passing through the Creston Valley will see some new billboards form the Canyon/Lister Fire Department. They get $6,500 to install three new billboards to inform people about current wildfire ban statuses.
The Villages of Silverton and Slocan also get funds to help with fuel management.
There was more than 1,300 wildfires in BC between April and November burning over 1.2 million hectares.
Click here for a complete list of grant recipients.
