Firefighters encourage Penticton residents to be “fire smart” this wildfire season

PPENTICTON — There are about 12,000 people living in Penticton whose lives and homes may be threatened during an interface fire, according to the local fire chief. Fire officials are asking residents to take some simple steps to make their homes more “fire smart.”

“Being proactive with your own property is going to probably be a deciding factor between a big fire or a small fire,” says Fire Chief Larry Watkinson.

Watkinson encourages residents to limb trees, and to rake up pine needles or debris on properties of interface neighbourhoods.

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On Friday, firefighters started to clean up a public trail to demonstrate that it isn’t a difficult task to take on.

“I think that by setting an example by doing some of our property we really need to inform the residents…that they need to be fire smart in whatever they can do to remove the fuel and limb up trees,” says Penticton Mayor Andrew Jakubeit.

Despite the fact the city experienced some rain this week, Watkinson says the fuel load is still tinder dry, adding a blaze can quickly set the urban-interface neighbourhood ablaze.

“If there was a cigarette butt or something flown over the bank here, this place would ignite. And it would travel up this bank very rapidly and then extend into the big urban interface above us,” says Watkinson.

To educate residents on how to protect their homes, the firefighters are hosting a “Fire Smart Learning Session” on Sunday, May 29 at the front park of Sendero Canyon, a new subdivision in an interface zone.