By Steve Hubrecht
Invermere wants to create a community wildfire resiliency plan, and has launched a survey to that end.
The plan is meant to help figure out fire risks and hazards in Invermere, as well as strategies to keep the district safe. The district is seeking feedback from local residents and property owners to help guide the plan.
“It’s something all municipalities are trying to ready themselves for. It’s better to be proactive than reactive,” Invermere mayor Al Miller told the Pioneer.
The catastrophic wildfire that destroyed Jasper this past summer caught plenty of attention all over Canada, and left some Columbia Valley residents worrying if the same could happen here.
But that fire wasn’t the inspiration for the plan, explained Miller, since “our minds were on this (creating a plan) before the Jasper fire. But Jasper certainly is an example that all mountain communities are vulnerable to wildfires.”
In the Columbia Valley, Invermere is following in the footsteps of the Village of Radium Hot Springs, which completed its community wildfire resiliency plan earlier this year. Through late September and still ongoing this October, the village has been carrying out work recommended in the plan, thinning out vegetation and clearing out undergrowth on the southern slope of Sinclair Creek Canyon, east of Highway 95 above the Canyon RV Resort, and to the north of Highway 93 as it heads into Kootenay National Park.
This slope was flagged as an “extreme” fire risk in Radium’s wildfire resiliency plan, the only such area on village-owned land. The other areas marked as an extreme fire risk near Radium are a few swaths of land in Kootenay National Park on or near Redstreak Mountain, which are managed by Parks Canada.
Radium chief administrative officer Adrian Bergles explained to the Pioneer that the village’s new resiliency plan updates the old one, which was done more than a decade and a half ago in 2008.
“It is important. All forest communities in British Columbia are vulnerable to wildfire,” noted Bergles. He added that village staff were not necessarily expecting the south southern slope of Sinclair Creek Canyon to be identified as extreme risk, but neither did it come as a complete surprise.
PHOTO SUE COY
Invermere’s wildfire resiliency plan is being developed by a registered professional forester with Nupqu Resource LP, the same company that did the Radium plan.
Miller said the District of Invermere has done some work to reduce wildfire fuels in the past but added “there’s still a lot to be done.”
Are there areas of extreme or high risk in Invermere, similar to the south slope of Sinclair Creek Canyon in Radium?
“There certainly are,” said Miller, pointing to problematic privately-owned land to the south and west of Invermere, as well as some to the north. “There are also problem areas that we need to deal with right here in town,” he noted.
One high-risk area is the land to the south and west of the CastleRock subdivision. The fire risk there is so well known that in spring 2023 dozens of firefighters and other emergency crews conducted a mock scenario based on a huge wildfire sweeping into Invermere via CastleRock, in order to gauge their preparation should the real thing occur.
Aside from CastleRock, Miller also noted there are likely high-risk areas through the Wilder subdivision, and along the heavily forested north-facing and west-facing slope separating Upper Invermere from the Athalmer industrial park.
“There’s some (fire) fuel in there. It’s been treated before, but that was awhile ago. It probably needs to be done again,” said Miller. “I think the experts in the field will also find other areas that need to be worked on.”
The survey runs until October 31. To take the survey, visit: https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/56bf5c856d3a401f8bf317585da3d31a.
