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Building community resilience: CRD FireSmart coordinator

Public education and community engagement focus of FireSmart coordinator position
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Cariboo Regional District FireSmart coordinator Travis Flanagan with some props he made for interacting with children to talk about FireSmarting.

With nine months under his belt as the Cariboo Regional District FireSmart coordinator, Travis Flanagan said it has been a "pretty awesome year."

Since taking on the position, which was new for the CRD, Flanagan attended 26 events, including sharing 16 power point presetations throughout the CRD and First Nations communities.

His visits are focused on building community resilience through public education and community engagement, he explained.

"I was at 10 different events like farmers' markets and fire department open houses," he told Black Press Media, adding he also worked with BC Wildfire Service and the city of Williams Lake to screen the film The Test, about the efforts made by the town of Logan Lake around FireSmarting.

He was part of a panel discussion at the screening. 

After attending the Williams Lake Children's Festival, he was inspired to build some props to engage children.

"I made some cool knock-downs, some trees, a house, a shed - some stuff like that to improve that engagement," he said. "Looking ahead that's going to be exciting."

As for FireSmart rebates for residents, at this time the CRD does not have the capacity to offer a rebate program through its finance department.

"We are still hoping to roll out assessments. I think there will be a lot of breaks and incentives to get your property FireSmart assessed and do some work. "We are already starting to see people getting $100 off and a five per cent discount on home insurance if they do FireSmarting."

Staff at the CRD has talked about an assessment program and are trying to determine how they could offer one. Eyeing 2025, Flanagan said he is hoping to set up FireSmart information in all of the CRD's 15 libraries starting in the new year.

"We can expect that to roll out in January and February," he said, explaining there will 10 library books and a series of printouts and handouts people can interact with. They will be part of the library system and can be checked out by patrons to take home and then returned for others.

For more information please check out FireSmart - Province of B.C. 



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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