Good Morning Elaine,
Nice talking to you on the phone today and thanks for getting back to me.
Strategic Wildfire, under the direction of the Regional District of Nanaimo, developing a Community Wildfire Prevention Plan, (CWPP), for the Dashwood Fire Protection District, which includes Little Qualicum Estates area.
This plan deals with wildfire prevention, not structural fires. However are large portion of the Dashwood Fire Protection District is what we term Wildland Urban Interface. That is, we have residential developments surrounded and inter-mixed with forests. As you will likely know this can present special challenges to fire protection personnel.
The CWPP aims to analyze the various factors and assess the risk of wild fire to the residents and structures in the Interface and recommends various solutions to mitigating those risks.
Little Qualicum Estates is a major development within the study area. It is also a classic Wildland Urban Interface area and due to it’s attributes, a major focus of this prevention plan.
The team from Strategic developing this CWPP is very interested in meeting with that same group or a smaller respresentation of that group. We want to hear what your concerns are with respect to wildfire prevention in this area. Some possible topics to raise with the group are:
level of community awareness of wildland urban interface
growth of the community, current fire protection, community equipment and training, (outside of Dashwood/ Meadowood FD’s) current emergrency access, emergency planning in place/ proposed/ contemplated
fire use within the community, what’s allowed, what isn’t, rules, enforcement of the rules
fuel management, receptivity to fuel management, (thinning/ pruning trees)
Firesmart, knowledge of, exposure, literature
awareness of forest fire safety sensitive areas, ie parks, special areas any local knowledge
I’d like to schedule a meeting in the near future, once your group has had some time to think about this topic.
—
Henry P. Grierson, RFT
Fire Management Technician
Strategic Forest Management Inc.
1271 Petersen Road
Campbell River, BC
V9W3H8