The Town of Golden will receive $400,000 to improve wildfire preparedness over the next two years.
The money comes through the FireSmart Community Funding and Supports Program (FCFS). The program is funded by the Province of BC and administered by the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM).
Michelangelo Mingarelli, Golden’s FireSmart Coordinator, explained that the program’s purpose is to increase wildfire resilience and continue their FireSmart Program.
“UBCM has this line of funding for local governments or indigenous communities to help build and promote FireSmart practices within those communities. Those FireSmart practices are essentially wildfire prevention measures, and wildfire prevention measures come in about seven different forms,” said Mingarelli.
“The seven FireSmart disciplines are education, vegetation management, legislation and planning, development considerations, interagency cooperation, cross training, and emergency planning. Within those seven disciplines, this money can be separated throughout to help build all of those disciplines within a community, which will inherently make the community more resilient and more prepared for a wildfire,” Mingarelli added.
Mingarelli explained how this money will be utilized in Golden.
“This money will be used for building education plans, structural protection units, fund rebates for homeowners, cross training, events, different educational videos. As well as host members of the fire department to go to the Wildfire Summit, different committee meetings and multi agency training events,” said Mingarelli.
He said the money won’t just be for FireSmart. The town, community members and firefighters will all reap the benefits of the funding.
“We will host educational events for the town that can cover non-combustible construction, methods of vegetation management, and landscape planning. Along with info nights on how to use the alertable app. It will help with emergency planning so people understand how to use the application,” Mingarelli said.
“Some money will go into cross training for the fire department because there are two different types of firefighters out there. There’s the wildfire firefighter, and there’s the structural firefighters. The structural firefighters will need wildland urban interface training for when wildfires actually come to the town. That will help them set up sprinklers, do tender operations, set up portable water tanks, manage hose lines on the wildland interface, and help with evacuations,” Mingarelli continued.
He said the money is very important to prepare and protect the community.
“This money is really pivotal for making a difference. It takes so much money to help build the prevention program, to educate the public, to become someone who can help change. All the money that can go into vegetation management and education are the steps required to build the resiliency and recovery systems for when wildfire comes through,” Mingarelli said.
“All the times you go to the schools to have those meetings in front of all the kids and young adults, there’s a lot of work that goes into it. A lot of work goes into those presentations, and bringing in all the firefighters. But those steps are what build the idea in everyone’s mind to help them learn what wildfire is and how to be safe from it. When we don’t learn how wildfire works or how to prevent the actual disaster, sometimes you can lose towns in the process.”
The FireSmart Coordinator stated how FireSmart is a group effort. The way you can make the biggest impact is by working together.
“The big thing about fire smart is that everyone needs to be on board. When we’re all on board there’s a much higher chance of everything working out. The most important thing I’d like to say to the community is that FireSmart is a team effort. It can help you make friends, make connections with neighbours and at the same time you’re making the town better. If we all do it together, we all have a better chance of making it through a possible wildfire event together,” said Mingarelli.
Collectively the community can improve wildfire safety and build a more resilient Golden.
