Wawanesa Insurance, FireSmart™ Canada, and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction have come together to award $150,000 in grants to 11 communities across Canada to prevent wildfires and protect Canadian communities.
The grants will go towards a range of activities, such as rapid deployment sprinkler systems, home preparedness kits, wildfire buffer zones, public education, and emergency evacuation planning.
The recipients of the grants come from diverse backgrounds, including Indigenous communities, rural municipalities, towns, residents’ associations, and local fire departments. The grants will provide these communities with the funds they need to implement essential wildfire prevention measures.
“We are very grateful to be chosen as a recipient for Wawanesa’s Community Wildfire Prevention Grant,” said Denise Macdearmid from the town of Gillam, Manitoba. “We will use the funds to purchase proper, safe equipment to complete a vegetation management project in our wildland-urban interface as identified in our Community Wildfire Protection Plan. This will allow us to be proactive and as prepared as possible while living in the boreal forest of Northern Manitoba.”
The grants will be used to fund a range of wildfire prevention activities, including rapid deployment of sprinkler systems, home preparedness kits, wildfire buffer zones, public education, emergency evacuation planning, and more. For a complete list of recipient communities, please visit the Wildfire Prevention website.
“Supporting community wildfire prevention is an important way we can help build a safer, more sustainable future for us all,” said Wayne Sharrah, Wawanesa’s chief claims & operations officer. “Given the community response to these grants, there is clearly a need for essential wildfire prevention measures. Wawanesa is proud to work with these communities, and we look forward to helping even more communities next year when we run the program again.”
“Wawanesa’s Community Wildfire Prevention Grants are an excellent way to get communities proactively involved in reducing their wildfire risk,” said Ray Ault, FireSmart™ Canada director. “Citizen involvement is at the core of everything we do at FireSmart™ Canada, so we are very pleased to support this initiative and look forward to seeing how communities come together to make their areas more resilient to wildfire.”
Paul Kovacs, executive director, of ICLR, added, “The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction is pleased and proud to have been asked to work with Wawanesa on this important initiative. Canada has seen a doubling in area burned since the 1970s and will see a further doubling, possibly a tripling, by the end of the century.
“This, coupled with Canada’s growing population, means more communities will be at risk from wildfire in the years ahead. Wawanesa’s Wildfire Grant Program will not only serve to make 11 Canadian communities more resilient to wildfire but will also allow these communities to serve as models to others looking to take similar actions. We applaud Wawanesa for their leadership in this area.”
