Sparwood applies for $400K FireSmart grant

Sparwood council has authorised an application for $400,000 in Community Resiliency Investment funding to support the community’s 2026 to 2027 FireSmart program.

Director of Fire Services Sheldon Tennant brought the report to council on March 3, describing Sparwood as a high risk wildland urban interface community where continued wildfire mitigation work remains essential.

“Sparwood is a high risk wildland urban interface community, making proactive risk reduction essential,” Tennant said.

He said the province’s Community Resiliency Investment programme, administered through the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, remains the main funding source for these activities.

If approved, the grant would support FireSmart staffing and programme coordination, public education, homeowner assessments, school outreach, public events, updates to wildfire resiliency planning and related equipment and training.

“The benefits to this [are that] these activities are 100 per cent grant funded,” Tennant said. “It supports a wide range of FireSmart and wildfire resiliency activities, enables strong year round FireSmart coordination and programming, encourages community engagement and is fully aligned with the province’s wildfire risk reduction priorities.”

He also cautioned that future intakes will be competitive and that the programme comes with substantial reporting requirements. Some types of work are no longer eligible under the grant stream and long term staffing sustainability remains an open question if future funding is not secured.

Councillor Sam Atwal said he was glad to see Sparwood moving early on the application and asked what would happen if the district wanted to continue the work after the grant term ends.

Chief administrative officer Michéle Schalekamp said that would likely come before the next council as part of strategic planning discussions.

“It will come forward with the next council[’s] strategic planning to see if we at that point would like to convert it to a full time employee to do that service,” Schalekamp said.

Atwal said he was pleased to see the district getting out ahead of uncertainty around future FireSmart dollars.

“I’m happy we’re on the front line to this,” he said.

Council approved the grant application unanimously.