‘It’s nothing’: Northern Sask. emergency co-ordinator says wildfire grant falls short

The province's new fire grant program is simply not going far enough according to one northern Saskatchewan community. Laura Woodward reports.

A new provincial grant aimed at helping communities reduce their wildfire risk falls short, according to a northern Saskatchewan emergency co-ordinator.

The FireSmart Grant Program provides up to $40,000 for communities to complete work needed to obtain a FireSmart designation.

“Forty-thousand dollars is nothing. It wouldn’t even get us started,” said Candyce Paul, the emergency management co-ordinator for English River First Nation.

Paul said the funding falls short of what’s needed in northern communities surrounded by boreal forest.

“I have done an analysis of what we need to do to FireSmart both of our communities. Over the next two years it would cost $600,000 to $1 million to do proper mitigation,” Paul told CTV News.

Michael Weger, Saskatchewan’s minister of community safety, announced the grant as part of the province’s response to an independent review that found flaws in its wildfire response.

“Fire mitigation is critical in wildfire prevention,” Weger told reporters on Friday.

Wadin Bay is the first community to receive the retroactive $40,000 grant for fire mitigation work already completed.

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The grant is welcomed by Forest Saskatchewan, but the non-profit said reducing wildfire risk requires greater attention to forest management.

“The forest resource needs protection,” Forest Saskatchewan CEO Carl Neggers told CTV News.

“We really need to spend some time and effort on the front end, which is forest management and forest protection. What does it take to make a forest more resilient to wildfire?”

The province said it plans to meet with Forest Saskatchewan June 30.

The government is also “partnering with local communities to train and deploy a new tier of firefighters looking to help protect their communities,” a spokesperson for the government of Saskatchewan told CTV News.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, speaking to reporters from a trade mission in Paris on Monday, said the grant is one of 11 ways the government is responding to the report’s findings.