Reducing wildfire risk at regional parks in Central Okanagan – Okanagan | 24CA News
With a lot gas load, parkland is fertile floor for wildfires.
That’s why the Regional District of Central Okanagan (RDCO) is focusing its efforts on gas mitigation work at its regional parks.
“We take ‘FireSmarting’ within our park systems extremely seriously,” stated Matt Hammond, the RDCO’s supervisor of park operations.
On Thursday, RDCO workers arrange an info desk at Kalamoir Park in West Kelowna to tell park customers in regards to the efforts underway to scale back the hearth threat.
“That effort is a variety of works, ” Hammond stated. “A lot of it is to clean up the forest fuel.”
In 2020, the RDCO carried out a FireSmart evaluation of its 30 regional parks throughout the Central Okanagan to create a precedence listing of parks slated for gas mitigation work.
“2,100 hectares of parkland that we assessed and that brings it into a priority rating so that way we will know which parks and areas to treat first,” Hammond stated.
Kalamoir Park was among the many high on the listing with work scheduled to begin on the park in November.
The work will contain lowering the gas masses together with eliminating underbrush and deadwood, treating invasive species development and pruning bushes as much as 2.5 metres off the bottom.
“The hands-on work will typically start in November and then we have to wait for that venting window and that’s when you can burn those piles,” Hammond stated.
Residents who stay across the park help the efforts, together with John Martin.
Martin lives within the close by neighborhood of Casa Loma, which is made up of almost 400 properties.
“I think it offers everybody a little bit of comfort in knowing that at least they’re taking the initiative in order to lessen the fire issues within those park areas,” Martin advised Global News.
The retired hearth captain from Ontario visits the park day by day and sees first hand the hearth threat that exists inside the 30-hectare park.
“Lots of fuel load; that’s why I’m glad to see RDCO taking on the initiatives to lessen that fuel load,” Martin stated.
Mitigation work, nevertheless, isn’t low-cost. This fall’s deliberate job in Kalamoir park alone is pegged at upwards of $50,000.
It’s cash that normally comes within the type of provincial authorities grants.
“The more the province can supply, the more initiatives can be taken by these organizations in order to lessen the fire load in all of our areas,” Hammond stated.
The RDCO will begin with the highest precedence parks and transfer down the listing as extra grants are available in.
“We’re going to do our best to reduce any risk that’s possible in all of our parkland,” Hammond stated. “That could also be to do with gas loading or public security — that’s at all times been our precedence is public security.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
