Edmonton is not immune from the possibility of forest fires.. We’ve seen a few close calls. It is important we know what we can do to reduce risks in our city.
Preparing for the threat of wildfire is a shared responsibility.
FireSmartTM is a framework designed to mitigate the risk of and educate residents and stakeholders regarding the potential for large uncontrollable wildfires near communities and critical infrastructure.
Community members, community leaders, industry and all levels of government have a responsibility to lessen the effects of wildfire. FireSmart is the implementation of both prevention and mitigation measures to reduce wildfire threat to Albertans and their communities while balancing the benefits of wildfire on the landscape.
The EFRS' Public Education group will be hosting a FireSmart Canada Neighborhood Recognition Program (NRP) in the Strathcona Neighbourhood. While this first event is hostedat the Strathcona Community League, all of us can benefit from learning more, and bring our own notes back to our local community league. Strathcona has been flagged as having a “Wildland Urban Interface” fire risk, but many of our communities share similar characteristics.
A community event will be held on Wednesday August 28th, 7:00pm, at the Strathcona Community League. One of our trained NRP Specialists will be presenting a brief overview of wildfire risks, and more importantly, how to mitigate that risk through FireSmart principles. In this meeting, we will be encouraged to identify a "Champion" to lead the work, with the support of our own Specialist. Do you know who a Champion could be? Please forward them this invitation!
Please help promote this to your neighborhood, as this pilot project will help to lay the foundation for a widespread rollout in Edmonton.
This will be the first time a large municipality has led an NRP program in Canada, and we have excellent support by FireSmart Canada.
Learn More about FireSmart Canada: https://www.alberta.ca/firesmart
News & Upcoming Events:
124th Street Grand Market is doing a pop-up at the Shamrock Curling Club on Friday August 30th. I just tabled at the pop up market on Happy Beer Street last weekend and over 4000 folks stopped by for shopping, music, food and fun. Stop by and say hello if you are free:
124 Grand Markets is bringing our Night Market pop up to Shamrock Curling Club this summer, called the Grand Night Markets! We are thrilled to be bringing 40-65+ vendors of all kinds, patrons, live entertainment and exciting night market vibes to the Shamrock Curling Club. This Night Market event will operate on Friday, August 30 from 5PM-10PM. We will be bringing 2500-5000+ patrons for this event so it is also a great opportunity to take advantage of the additional customer traffic in the neighborhood for businesses.
This event will be free to patrons to attend and free for the businesses of Mill Creek, King Edward and Ritchie Neighborhoods to participate as well.
What I'm watching:
1) How American Fire Departments are Getting People Killed: This was a really provocative watch. Larger roads are much more dangerous to pedestrians, yet they are required to be large to acomodate the fire trucks to respond to emergencies. Should we be looking at right-sizing fire trucks to our roads? https://youtu.be/j2dHFC31VtQ?si=hIRHDbuhVK0CruAr
2) Who's taking America's water? Water shortages have been a front-burner issue this summer following the infrastructure issues in Calgary. How do we run our cities in a time of drought? Who goes thristy? https://youtu.be/XusyNT_k-1c?si=hefImR8Pj94-XcVl
