FILE PHOTO - An car was among the property destroyed in the North Westside community by the White Rock Lake wildfire in 2021.

(DAN WALTON / iNFOnews.ca)

While some residents of the Central Okanagan are just returning home to measure the devastation from wildfire, some communities are moving from emergency protection to already planning on prevention.

Lake Country doesn't want to take any more chances and is discussing future fire mitigation plans.

On Sept. 7, the Lake Country Fire Department announced homeowners in the community will be offered a free professional home assessment with property-specific FireSmart recommendations. Once the recommendations have been completed, homeowners may then be eligible for a rebate of up to $500.

Lake Country Mayor Blair Ireland said he believes there's an appetite for FireSmart within his community.

“I mean, they've seen what's happened,” Ireland told iNFOnews.ca. “In some of our newer neighbourhoods where the landscaping was built around FireSmart principles, people can see where the fire burnt right up to the edge of, not just the house, but the house's landscaping. So, all their garden and everything is still intact, but it's burnt in front, it's burnt behind.”

The McDougall Creek fire continues to threaten several neighbourhoods in West Kelowna, but there's no indication of any prevention activity there. Calls to West Kelowna Mayor Gord Milsom were re-routed to the communications department and both declined an opportunity to comment. Numerous attempts to reach Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas were not returned.

Mayor Ireland explained council has been in communication with senior governments about FireSmart initiatives and funding this summer.

“We had a chance to talk to the Minister of Forests the other day… saying that we're going to need to increase the funding and the support in a big way,” he said.

Funding is essential to carry out future fire mitigation plans, Ireland said.

“All communities are going to be sitting out there saying, what more can we do? And they're going to need funding from the province and the federal government,” Ireland said.

The provincial government is pushing initiatives to build new infrastructure and housing, but Ireland said funding should also be given to local communities to incentivize private landowners to FireSmart their properties.

“The province wants us to build lots of houses and we want to do that. But we have to build them in a smart way, and we have to be able to protect them,” he said.

Removal of high fire risk trees is an expensive service that many property owners are unwilling or unable to afford. Even if local neighbourhoods and Crown lands follow FireSmart procedure, the fire risk of private property can still put the community in danger. 

“The threat to our community is fire in forests that's on private land,” Ireland said. “And the incentives for those people to FireSmart their properties are not enough… You know, we're talking about people that (have) an acreage where there's lots of trees and it's a huge bill to FireSmart all that. But that property is a danger to the community… so we have to incentivize these people to do this. We can't just walk in and make them. There's no mechanism for that.”

Another incentive the council is discussing is preventing the use of high-risk trees, such as cedar hedges, in local communities.

“We're going to have a discussion at one of our next council meetings about preventing planting of future cedar hedges,” he said. “We're not able to go through and tell people to rip out their hedges that have already been planted. But going forward, we need to make a plan where those aren't part of the landscape anymore, because it's not just the fire.

"Of course, they're like putting gasoline to a fire, but they're also huge water users and the Okanagan is in drought level five right now.”

Lake Country council also plans to be in communication with First Nations, Ireland said, and is looking towards carrying out prescribed cultural burns.

“On Crown land and public land, there will be a consultation with First Nations,” he said. “Prescribed burns, we've seen a return of that, and I'd suggest that's going to become much more common practice.”

With the devastation that has followed the McDougall Creek wildfires, there is a growing need with the West Kelowna community to know what is going to be done to protect their properties from future fires.  

The City of West Kelowna is offering a free home assessment from a West Kelowna Fire Rescue FireSmart professional. After the assessment, the homeowner will be eligible for a local grant program of up to $500. 

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