Preventing wildfires with planning and response

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

With wildfire season upon us, residents of Wheatland County should be proactive to prevent the chance of fire.
On March 1, the government of Alberta announced the start of the province’s wildfire season. While front-line firefighters are prepared to respond to wildfires across the province – from sweltering forest fires to rapid prairie fires – the best approach to stopping fires remains prevention.
Most of Alberta’s fires start due to human negligence, said Vern Elliot, Wheatland County Fire Services consultant and Strathcona County Emergency Services Deputy Fire Chief.
“When you look at a lot of the bigger fires that have occurred in the province, most of those are caused by people,” said Elliot.
The potential speed of prairie fires makes them dangerous to people and their livelihoods, said Elliot.
“With the grasslands, it can travel fast, which can threaten crops and livestock, and it threatens lives; it can come up on outbuildings, storage for grains, or it can threaten residential properties.”
A common ignition source of many fires is off-road vehicles, said Elliot.
“Where materials get caught up near the exhaust, the exhaust heats it up to a point of ignition, and that (material) might drop off as you ride through a field or across a valley.”
Many wildfires result from intentional fires that unintentionally spread, he said. These fires happen when landowners start “a significant fire on their property, and don’t make sure it’s in control and monitor the condition.”
Throughout Alberta’s prairies, controlled burns can be risky because “wind can change pretty dramatically in a short order,” Elliot added.
To conduct a controlled burn, Wheatland County requires residents to attain a permit from the county, which establishes condition requirements, such as requiring an adult present, not burning when wind speeds exceed or are predicted to exceed 15 kilometres per hour, and have mitigation in place to prevent and react to fire spread. The county can also enact fire bans to limit or prohibit item burning or advisories to warn of high-risk conditions.
FireSmart Canada (firesmartcanada.ca), a non-profit, offers a free online course – FireSmart 101 – to improve awareness about approaches to fire prevention.
Rural landowners can limit their risk further by creating firebreaks on their properties, said Wheatland County Division 1 Councillor Jason Wilson. During the 2017 wildfire around Gleichen and Carseland that required the county to declare a state of emergency, Wilson had areas of his property scorched and had to relocate his cattle.
“You go around the field, whether its stubble or native pasture, with a disc and make a swath all the way around,” he said. “It might not prevent a fire, but it’s going to slow it, because it has got to jump that fresh dirt.”
The best way to respond to wildfires is a community approach that involves both landowners and emergency response teams, said Wilson.
“Farmers know the area, they know the roads, and they know where the fire is going to jump,” he said. “We know the geographical aspects of fighting fire.”