FireSmart crews thin the creek corridor before the dry weeks arrive
Sixty hectares of brush and deadfall come out of the valley this month — the unglamorous work that decides how a bad day goes.
The chainsaws started in the creek corridor Monday, and for the next month the valley's walkers will share the trails with crews doing the least photogenic work in wildfire management: cutting brush, limbing spruce to head height, and dragging two decades of deadfall out of the draws that run up toward the neighbourhoods.
The corridor is the city's FireSmart priority for a plain reason — it is a wick. A creek valley full of cured grass and ladder fuel connects the open country south of town to backyards in four subdivisions, and fire behaviour models treat it accordingly. The sixty hectares in this year's program are the sections the models like least.
The work is jointly funded through the provincial FireSmart program, with the city and county splitting the rest — an arrangement renewed annually with less argument each year. The springs of 2023 and 2024, when smoke sat on the town for weeks and two counties west of here evacuated, settled the debate about whether the money is worth it.
Residents will notice the difference more than they might expect: the corridor will look opened-up, almost park-like, where the crews have been. The deadfall goes to the burn pile at the transfer station this winter. The trails stay open throughout, with short detours posted — and the crews ask walkers to keep dogs leashed near the work, because a skidder and a loose retriever disagree about right of way.
