SRD seeks grant reducing wildfire threat to community buildings
Cortes Currents
English - March 23, 2021 16:29 - 3 minutes - 7.3 MBNews cortes island discovery islands quadra food security energy indigenous nations Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) is seeking a Union of BC Municipalities grant to decrease the vulnerability of community buildings to wildfire.
The associated staff report contains written endorsements from the village of Zeballos and South Quadra Island Island Fire Protection District.
By the time SRD Protective services Coordinator Shaun Koopman explained his proposal to the Board, the Cortes Island Firefighting Association sent their endorsement and the village of Gold River expressed interest.
“The Regional District recently obtained over $200,000 for wildfire risk reduction. What you see before you is my request to apply for another wildfire risk reduction grant, for about twice that amount. The focus of this grant is to reduce the vulnerability of our critical infrastructure tfrom being destroyed or damaged during a wildfire,” said Koopman.
Proposed projects include:
a wildfire fuel treatment on 4 hectares of Crown Land adjacent to the Cortes Island Recycling Centre
The land surrounding Gorge Hall, the Whaletown Firehall and Linnaea Farm education building on Cortes Island.
The Bible Church and Camp Homewood properties on Quadra Island.
There are also projects in Sayward, Zeballos and the Nuchaltaht Nation.
The Board approved this application, which is now being sent to the Union of BC Municipalities.
Photo credit: House Fire by Albert Straub via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)