Promoting Low-Level Risk Mitigation by Homeowners

After suffering severe damage due to the Flat Top Fire Complex in 2011, the Town of Slave Lake, Alberta, undertook an aggressive and forward-looking approach to fire risk mitigation. The Flat Top Fire Complex entered the town from the surrounding woods of Alberta’ boreal forest. It caused the destruction of 484 single-family homes and many other structures and forced an evacuation of the town. At the time, this represented the largest loss of private homes from a single natural disaster in Canadian history. Following the disaster, the town’s fire department went door-to-door to help educate citizens about FireSmart practices and how they could better protect their homes against ignition. These visits were also supplemented by training courses and risk reduction workshops. The town also invested nearly $7 million in vegetation clearances to help reduce the potential fuels for another fire in the surrounding areas. Additionally, they allocated substantial resources to improving operational response capacity and efficiency. As a result of these measures, in 2015, the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River, which includes the Town of Slave Lake, received the FireSmart Community Protection Achievement Award, which recognizes Canadian communities dedicated to reducing wildfire risk on their landscape through the implementation of FireSmart solutions.

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Understanding and Assessing Impacts

The FireSmart program was established to educate Canadians about the various initiatives they can pursue to protect their families, communities and properties from wildfire risk. The program is spread out over seven key disciplines: vegetation management, public education, legislation, development, planning, cross-training, and inter-agency cooperation. When a comprehensive wildfire risk reduction effort is pursued across all seven disciplines, the wildfire risk faced by communities located in the wildland urban interface can be greatly reduced. Partnerships and inter-agency collaborations between residents, community associations, local industries, municipal governments, municipal fire departments and other groups are also key to efficiently deploying a strong FireSmart strategy. An important and ongoing focus of the program has been on homeowners. Homeowners are encouraged to assess their risk of loss through a formal assessment. Proven risk reduction practices are identified to protect individual structures from fire damage. These include structural elements, like fire resistant roofing and siding, and vegetation management focused on zones of protection around structures. In the spring of 2011, 52 wildfires were reported in the Slave Lake region of Alberta over a four-day period. During this extreme wildfire situation, approximately 23 wildfires presented an important threat to communities, including the Town of Slave Lake. The Flat Top Complex of wildfires was particularly destructive, resulting in a total of 484 single-family homes and many other structures destroyed throughout the Slave Lake region. At the time, this represented the largest loss of private homes from a single natural disaster in Canadian history. The first of the Flat Top Complex of wildfires entered the Town of Slave lake. Following this event, the Town developed a strategy around FireSmart principles to reduce future wildfire risks for the community.

Identifying Actions

Prior to the Flat Top Complex wildfires, the Town of Slave Lake used to run one or two forestry driven projects focused on fuel management every year to reduce wildfire risk. These initiatives were generally taking place far away from homes and very little was done to reduce risk within the community. This changed dramatically following the 2011 wildfires, which is when the community started pursuing FireSmart principles in all seven disciplines in an effort to minimize the risks of a similar event reoccurring. In the aftermath of the 2011 fire, the community aimed to build back better by encouraging homeowners to rebuild with FireSmart principles. The Fire Department went door to door to offer FireSmart assessments of properties at no cost. They also delivered several community hazard reduction workshops and developed three courses on wildfire risk reduction aimed at the public, contractors and government representatives. The educational material developed for wildland urban interface residents and landscapers around vegetation and fuel treatments that also included concerns for environmental, wildlife and aesthetic values certainly helped as residents were rebuilding their properties. While no specific legislation was in place at the provincial or municipal level, several homeowners were encouraged by these steps and took the matter into their own hands, applying FireSmart principles around their homes.

Implementation

In addition to public education, the community made an investment of $6.8 million over five years in vegetation management. A portion of this investment was directed towards live and tabletop exercises during which the forestry and fire departments as well as community representatives prepared for specific wildfire scenarios. The Town of Slave Lake also invested a lot of resources in emergency planning and preparedness. A new regional emergency management plan was created in addition to several 72-hour preparedness campaigns and extensive messaging through different media. In addition, several cross-training initiatives around wildfire risk reduction took place in the four years following the wildfires as a result of inter-agency collaborations.

Outcomes and Monitoring Progress

The various initiatives that were developed by the community allowed for a better understanding of wildfire risk among residents, which led to stronger actions being taken at the property level. In 2015, the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River, which includes the Town of Slave Lake, received the FireSmart Community Protection Achievement Award, which recognizes Canadian communities dedicated to reducing wildfire risk on their landscape through the implementation of FireSmart solutions. Moreover, research published by the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction reported that community efforts to reduce the risk of wildfire damage following the 2011 fire were sustained. When asked what he thought justified the high uptake rate of FireSmart measures among homeowners in Slave Lake, Chief Jamie Coutts, former Fire Chief at Lesser Slave Regional Fire Service (2002-2019), emphasized the importance of public education. “It is crucial to work with people and make it as easy on them as possible to implement specific risk reduction measures. When you provide people with the right education, they are in a better position to decide what is best for them without being directly told what to do,” said Chief Coutts. He added that “once people learned there were straightforward things that they could do around their homes that didn’t cost much, such as moving wood piles and cleaning up their yards, they became even more keen to take action. There might have been pressure and expectations that came from neighbours as well who didn’t want to increase the risk faced by their properties.” The case of Slave Lake highlights the power of collective actions for managing wildfire risk.

Resources

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