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<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s always difficult with those kinds of things,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s essentially a bit of a status quo, with an increase. There\u2019s another new plane coming online \u2013 water bomber coming online \u2013 so there\u2019s an increase in that regard\u2026 But hopefully we don\u2019t have the kind of year we did last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
The fire department at Candle Lake helped respond to wildfires at East Trout Lake last summer, where many structures were damaged in the fires.<\/p>\n
Arnold said he hoped to see more funding for prevention, education and equipment to help communities to fight flames and prevent fires from breaking out in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings like fire breaks around communities, things like having enough sprinkler protection to protect communities,\u201d he said. \u201cHonestly, we need to put way more money into preparing for wildfires rather than fighting wildfires.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold said he would like to see more funding to going towards forestry management, thinning out trees and dead wood that can fuel flames.<\/p>\n
Tax credit for volunteer first responders doubled<\/p>\n
Aaron Buckingham, president of the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association, said many people left their jobs to fight flames during last year\u2019s devastating wildfire season.<\/p>\n
In recognition of the sacrifices made by volunteers, the provincial budget doubled the volunteer first responders\u2019 tax credit from $3,000 to $6,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us do it for the money. None of us do it to be reimbursed. None of us do it to be recognized,\u201d Buckingham said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a nice thing the government is doing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federal government previously raised its version of the tax credit for volunteer first responders to $6,000, and Arnold said he wasn\u2019t surprised to see the province do the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiving the tax incentives allows volunteer firefighters to retain the people they\u2019ve got, and perhaps give the incentive enough to bring in new firefighters,\u201d Arnold said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to get volunteer firefighters. It really is.\u201d<\/p>\n
by Gillian Massie – 650 CKOM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s always difficult with those kinds of things,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s essentially a bit of a status quo,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-552460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}