Woodcreek Park Neighbourhood Association (WPNA) held an event on April 4 and 5 that all of us should take a page from and emulate post haste! FireSmart! We have an indefatigable FireSmart coordinator working for us, David McIlwraith, trying to help us prepare for the kinds of fire events that have become all but inevitable in our time.
Our (often wooden) homes are generally within 10 metres of each other, with plenty of combustible material between them –– shrubbery, bark mulch, wooden fences, hedges, woodpiles, etc. These provide a continuity of fuel from one home to the next. So, the first advice of the FireSmart team is to remove or move such combustibles five meters away from our homes. Next, we should limb up our shrubs and trees to six feet away from the ground so they don’t become fire ladders.
Of course, FireSmart personnel are not police. They are not going to force us to do anything, but they want us to know the risks. Then it’s up to us to mitigate them. But FireSmart knows how to attract folks to a work party: hamburgers. When members of WPNA reached out to David, he came over to Woodcreek to walk through the process of organizing the event and what it entailed with Claire Finlayson, Sandra Cunningham and Buzz Bennett, (among others). They then set up a few small committees who organized the work, much of which was accomplished by suspects of the usual age demographic –– 60-to-80-year-olds. They showed up to first learn how to mitigate the many manageable risks that surround our homes and neighbourhoods; then they got to work. (See photos online)
After the toil comes the secret sauce: Ketchup! On the hamburgers! There was a barbecue burger-feast and potluck to celebrate. FireSmart provided the burgers. Nobody went hungry. FireSmart will provide burgers and buns for any community or neighbourhood that is willing to organize a similar event.
David and his team have carried out 562 individual home assessments so far on the Sunshine Coast, and 30 community assessments, 13 of which, including Woodcreek Park, have been certified FireSmart.
Think of the exponential increase that we could see in risk mitigation if neighbours worked collaboratively. Why not organize a FireSmart Work Party and Barbecue in your neighbourhood? It really couldn’t be easier, and importantly, it will also create connection between neighbours whom you maybe shouldn’t be meeting for the first time in an emergency situation. When you get up some momentum and are ready to commit, call David McIlwraith: 604-865-0459. He’s a busy man. [email protected]; scrd.ca/firesmart.
