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<\/p>\nAs council considers budgeting anywhere from $2 million to $11 million for wildfire mitigation, risk management proponents are praising the City of Edmonton for taking a bold step in wholistic wildfire management.<\/p>\n
During a community and public services committee meeting on Monday, advocates said Edmonton is one of the first major municipalities to take a wholistic approach to wildfire management as members reviewed the city\u2019s wildland-urban interface wildfire risk strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good news story,\u201d said Fire Chief David Lazenby, while noting the city has dealt with more than 2,000 grass fires since 2020. \u201cWe can\u2019t confirm for sure that we are the first major city (to implement the strategy), but to the best of our knowledge we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Committee was given three options on how to proceed into the next disaster season. Maintain the status quo \u2014 which would result in roughly 30 per cent risk reduction and have no budget impact, step up mitigation work to reduce risk by roughly 65 per cent at an estimated cost of between $2 million and $6 million, or open the funding flow completely to mitigate up to 100 per cent of risk at an estimated cost of $8 million to $11 million. Members voted unanimously to explore the actual costs of the latter two options in council\u2019s upcoming four-year budget deliberations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Edmonton Fire Chief David Lazenby answers question on Monday, April 20, 2026, after city councillors reviewed the city\u2019s wildland-urban interface wildfire risk strategy, which advocates say is among the first of its kind employed by a major city in Canada. Eric Bowling\/Postmedia<\/p>\n
Because of climate change, wildfire season now starts earlier and lasts longer. Seven of the 12 driest years on record in Edmonton have been since 2000. Things are only going to get worse, as the Edmonton-area climate is projected to get more arid and hotter by 2050. Across Canada, there\u2019s been a doubling of surface area burned since the 1970s. This could double or triple again by 2100. Wildfires are also expensive. The 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire cost more than $9 billion in insurance losses and the 2024 Jasper wildfire caused $1.23 billion in insurance claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cWildfire risk is changing and we\u2019re changing the map by warming our climate,\u201d said Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction managing director Glenn McGillivray, who heaped praise on the city for implementing the strategy. \u201cYou are probably the first major city in Canada to start thinking along these lines.\u201d<\/p>\n
With more than 7,400 hectares of wildland urban interface, Edmonton\u2019s primary wildfire corridor is the river valley but grasslands along major roadways and utilities can also be a significant risk. Fire travels faster uphill since flames can heat more fuel above them. While most people have an image of a \u201cwall of flame\u201d from evacuation footage over the past two decades, the predominant way fire spreads is through embers, which can easily float in the air, land on flammable structures and ignite them. Consequently, fires can spread extremely fast \u2014 in 2018, a California wildfire expanded by one football field per second and during the burning of Paradise a fire jumped an entire canyon. Closer to home, in Fort McMurray, the fire became visible from space within 15 minutes of the blaze starting on the \u201csafe\u201d side of the Athabasca River. Edmonton had its own wildfire scare in 2023 when a grassfire smoked out the Albany neighbourood.<\/p>\n
If a disastrous wildfire reaches Edmonton, the strategy is to work from structures outward to protect buildings and infrastructure. Senior environmental project manager Ashley Hynes \u2014 who led the development of the strategy \u2014 said the three big risks to urban centres in wildfires are how close structures are to one another, how close vegetation is to a building, and the materials used to construct homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking at trying to mitigate potential damage that could be caused by a wildfire,\u201d she said. \u201cResidents would like to better understand what their risk looks like and what supports are available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ignition resistant structures, with materials like stucco, asphalt roofs and metal cladding, are far more likely to survive a wildfire event. The area up to 1.5 metres from a structure should be free of combustible material, including grass, cardboard, lawn furniture and anything else that can burn. Banff recently passed a bylaw forbidding flammable debris to be near a home.<\/p>\n
The city is planning to offer free public education on how to FireSmart a home, pending a $32,000 grant through the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta. Edmonton recently boasted its first FireSmart community in Skunk Hollow, which sits on the hillside between Strathcona and the North Saskatchewan River.<\/p>\n
Humans are responsible for more than 60 per cent of wildfires in Alberta. Fires can be sparked by discarded cigarettes, chains or loose metal dragging on the highway, fallen power lines, small internal combustion engines such as ATVs, fireworks, improperly kept fire pits, or people ignoring fire bans.<\/p>\n
To catch sparks before they burn out of control, the city is using drones to patrol the river valley and parks within its limits. The drones are able to see plumes of smoke not visible from roads or buildings.<\/p>\n
Officials are also proactively removing problem vegetation, both by pruning lower branches and removing accumulations of wood waste, and using prescribed burns to reduce fuel in conjunction with Indigenous partners.<\/p>\n
ebowling@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As council considers budgeting anywhere from $2 million to $11 million for wildfire mitigation, risk management proponents are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[118375,231993,49,48,23752,231991,231992,11311,86366,231994],"class_list":{"0":"post-617501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-2016-fort-mcmurray-wildfire","9":"tag-2024-jasper-wildfire","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-edmonton","13":"tag-risk-strategy","14":"tag-wholistic-approach","15":"tag-wildfire","16":"tag-wildfire-management","17":"tag-wildfire-risk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617501","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=617501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}