With wildfires causing billions of dollars of damage and threatening many Alberta communities and lives in recent years, stakeholder efforts are ongoing to meet current challenges and prepare for future incidents.
For example, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) recently created a working group to map out strategies for wildfire management outside provincial forest protection areas, in so-called non-FPA communities.
The group’s report has now been released, and it includes 31 recommendations to the government of Alberta, government of Canada, municipalities, and other agencies and organizations.
While implementing the recommendations will certainly take time, it is vital that work start now – because when it comes to wildfire safety, there’s no time like the present.
“These recommendations are a staring point for how non-FPA municipalities, the government of Alberta, and other agencies can work together to improve wildlife management outside of forest protections area,” RMA officials said.
“Moving forward, RMA intends to advocate for the adoption of these recommendations by the various targeted stakeholders and to continue to identify solutions for non-FPA municipalities.”
Key recommendation aims specifically at the provincial government include a call to “develop a competency-based approach to firefighter training and certification based on skills, regardless of specific training standards, increase funding for the Fire Services Training Grant and other wildfire training grants, and establish a trigger point for a province-wide fire ban based on the percentage of firefighting resources committed.”
Recommendations aimed specifically at municipalities include that they “broaden mutual aid agreements to become regional resource sharing agreements that would cover sharing of equipment, infrastructure, and staff for non-frontline services, and that they develop a policy or other building document that clearly defines the role of volunteers, including spontaneous volunteers, during a wildfire response, including training, command structure and scope of work.”
With Alberta wildfire season 2025 now underway, as of March 1, it is vital that governments at all levels and other stakeholders continue working individually and collaboratively to prepare and plan for the short- and long-term challenges ahead.
Dan Singleton is an editor with the Albertan.
