Parkland County calls for new long-term wildfire plan for areas outside of protection area

A county west of Edmonton is calling on the provincial government to come up with a new long-term strategy for fighting wildfires outside the Forest Protection Areas. 

A resolution submitted by Parkland County is on the agenda for discussion at the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) convention next month.

The resolution asks the province to work with RMA, Alberta Municipalities and the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association on a new plan for handling wildfires in areas outside Forest Protection Areas known as the white zone.  

"It's about working collaboratively to ensure that more resources are ready and available at the start of wildfire season in March and available until October," Parkland County Mayor Allan Gamble said in an interview with CBC News. 

The resolution says fire seasons start earlier, last longer and hit more areas than ever before. It also states that Alberta Wildfire staff focus their efforts on Forest Protection Areas, leaving municipal crews to fight fires outside those areas.  

The province can provide specialized staff and equipment for fires in the white zone if they aren't tied up elsewhere. But the intensity, scope and high number of fires in this year's wildfire season meant municipalities couldn't tap into that expertise.

Parkland County spent $13 million on the 70 days it spent fighting the large fire southeast of Evansburg which forced hundreds from their homes. The county also hired a private crew from British Columbia and received help from neighbouring municipalities. 

The province will reimburse up to 90 per cent of the cost but the municipality is still waiting on a decision. 

The Alberta Fire Chiefs Association recently passed a resolution similar to Parkland County's. 

Gamble says there is an urgent need to have these discussions.

"I think we have to recognize that wildfire response is becoming more costly every year and hotter, drier summers will create an even more dangerous situation for rural areas," he said.

"I think that if we work together and work on long-term planning that will increase our ability to deal with these fires."

Bring back rapattack

Parkland County isn't the only municipality raising concerns about the province's 2023 fire response.

Earlier this month, Yellowhead County sent a letter to Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen complaining about a lack of readiness and slow response. The county wants to ensure Alberta Wildfire has its staff and equipment ready to go on March 1 next year. 

Loewen was not made available for an interview. His staff did not provide CBC News with answers to several questions by deadline. 

Edmonton-Manning MLA Heather Sweet, the NDP critic for agriculture, forestry and rural economic development, echoed the call for Alberta to have staff hired and trained by March 1 as recommended by reports into the 2011 Slave Lake and 2016 Fort McMurray fires. 

Sweet said the government needs to provide wildfire training for municipal firefighters and reinstate the elite rapattack firefighting crew, which the UCP government disbanded for budgetary reasons in 2019.

"The government needs to reevaluate how they're supporting our wildfire firefighters. They need to be staffing up," Sweet said.

"They need to get rapattack back and they need to be providing support to to those workers and those firefighters to be able to do their job."

The Parkland County resolution is set to be discussed at the RMA meeting in Edmonton in early November. If it passes, Gamble hopes the province will come to the table.