Insights from Six Months of FireSmarting Peaks 

In July 2025, FireSmartPeaks wrote to Canmore's Mayor and Council to urge them to augment existing (and welcome) efforts to mitigate wildfire risk in Canmore and the Bow Valley. Included with our letter was a short note which provides insights and lessons that FireSmartPeaks has gleaned in the last six months which could usefully inform the Council’s and Town’s approach to mitigating wildfire risk at the community-level. Our main take away is the need for the Council and Town to lead a visible and concerted campaign around wildfire mitigation that educates, encourages and supports residents to form neighbourhood FireSmart Committees and work towards the NRP. Such a campaign would emphasise the responsibility of all residents to implement FireSmart actions around their homes while also highlighting that FireSmart actions are straightforward, inexpensive and an effective means for protecting against ember ignitions. It would need to be accompanied by a series of practical measures by the Town that facilitate and support the efforts of residents to FireSmart their homes and neighbourhoods. You can read the note below.

FireSmart at the Community Level:

Insights from Six Months of FireSmart in the Peaks of Grassi

(July 2025)

In January 2025, a group of Peaks of Grassi residents formed FireSmartPeaks and began working towards FireSmart Canada’s Neighbourhood Recognition Program (NRP). Between April and June, FireSmartPeaks: 

• Convened a virtual information session in April watched by 167 people.

• Gave an Earth Talk at Canmore Public Library to encourage other Canmore neighbourhoods to undertake FireSmart actions. 

• Organized a Wildfire Community Preparedness Day event in May attended by more than 200 people, including experts from Canmore Fire-Rescue and Alberta Wildfire who offered practical advice to participants on FireSmarting their homes.

• Established a “tool library” (loppers, shears, saws and rakes) to support FireSmart actions by Peaks residents.

• Secured discounts for Peaks residents with local businesses for tree removal and gutter cleaning and for acquiring roof-top sprinklers. 

• Organized the first annual “Clean the Peaks Day” in June during which 50 volunteers helped FireSmart more than 80 homes. More than 12 tons of combustible material were removed from around homes and the neighbourhood. 

The experience of FireSmartPeaks shows it is possible for neighbours to come together to engage directly in wildfire mitigation and to help make their communities safer and more resilient. The present note draws on that experience and provides insights and lessons that FireSmartPeaks has learned in the last six months that might usefully inform the approach of the Council and Town of Canmore to mitigating the risks associated with wildfire in Canmore. These insights and lessons are divided into two categories: 

•  Awareness raising and education

• Facilitating FireSmart actions and providing practical support and incentives to residents

1. Awareness Raising and Education

Our experience in establishing FireSmartPeaks and working towards the NRP has underlined the need for Council and the Town to lead a visible and concerted campaign around wildfire mitigation that encourages residents to form neighbourhood FireSmart Committees and work towards the NRP. Such a campaign would emphasize the responsibility of all residents to implement FireSmart actions around their homes, either individually or with their neighbours as part of the NRP. It would also highlight that FireSmart actions are straightforward, inexpensive and an effective means for protecting against ember ignitions. More specifically, messaging should address the following themes:

• • Residents have a responsibility to do all they can to mitigate the risk of wildfire. Canmore is a wildfire-prone community and we need to learn, as a community, to co-exist with wildfire by taking concrete actions to mitigate risk. This is not a task that should be left to the Town alone. It is a shared responsibility. 

• • Small actions make a big difference, especially within the immediate and intermediate zones (up to 1.5m and 1.5-10m from their homes) of the “home ignition zone”. Such actions include clearing deadfall, pine needles and cones, cleaning gutters, removing mulch and juniper, and pruning conifer branches that are within 2m of the ground to stop surface fire from travelling into the crown. These are straightforward and inexpensive actions that can be completed in a weekend. They could make a significant difference in the event of a wildfire within the vicinity of Canmore by reducing ember ignitions (see below).

• • FireSmarting helps reduce the risk of ember ignitions that can lead to urban conflagration. The majority of homes damaged or destroyed by wildfire are ignited by wind-driven embers that can travel up to 2km ahead of a wildfire. Los Angeles earlier this year, Jasper last year and West Kelowna in 2023 were urban conflagrations that were caused by wind-driven embers from wildfires. Explaining and understanding the role of ember ignitions is essential for understanding why FireSmarting homes and neighbourhoods is an essential and proven strategy for mitigating risk.

• • The community fireguard does not negate the need to FireSmart homes. As important as the fireguard is, residents need to understand that its role is to slow the rate of spread of a fire and reduce its intensity. It will not necessarily prevent wind-driven embers which can ignite homes and infrastructure and lead to an urban conflagration. Action to FireSmart homes is still essential. 

The timing of a campaign should take into account the FireSmart Canada funding window, i.e., that the deadline for neighbourhoods to apply for the NRP Incentive Grant ($1000) from FireSmart Canada is the end of February. In order to apply for the grant, a wildfire hazard assessment must have been completed by the local FireSmart representative (Canmore Fire-Rescue) and a wildfire mitigation plan drawn up by the neighbourhood committee. Funding is essential for covering costs relating to neighbourhood clean-up events, including BBQs and the removal of combustible materials. These considerations would suggest that late summer/fall would be the time to launch such a campaign and mobilise neighbourhoods and would allow for wildfire hazard assessments to be conducted before significant snowfall.

2. Facilitate Firesmart Actions and Provide Practical Support and Incentives to Residents

The Town should facilitate and support the efforts of residents to FireSmart their homes and neighbourhoods. In practical terms this would include the following: 

• • Providing clear and accessible guidance to residents on the process for forming a neighbourhood FireSmart committee and enrolling in the NRP. This could be done through print, radio and social media and the Town’s website. Pending the appointment of a Regional FireSmart Coordinator, the Town should designate an individual who would be the first point of contact for residents who want to mobilise their neighbours and engage in the NRP.

• • Supporting the removal and disposal of combustible materials from neighbourhoods at the beginning of each fire season (as envisaged in the Climate Emergency Action Plan but not implemented), including in the context of neighbourhood-wide clean up events, such as Clean the Peaks. We heard repeatedly during Clean the Peaks that many residents cleared out deadfall and other combustible materials from their yards because we would take care of removal and disposal. Without that, fewer residents would have engaged.

• • Allowing residents to prune conifer trees that are on Town land adjacent to their property to prevent the potential for crown fires without the need to apply for a permit under the Tree Protection Bylaw for which the Town is not currently accepting applications. 

• • Removing conifer trees that are on Town land adjacent to homes where the trees pose a fire-risk to homes (especially where branches overhang homes). FireSmartPeaks is mapping areas in the Peaks of Grassi where this would apply and will share our findings in due course.

• • Establish “community forests” where residents help to steward Town-land, for example, by arranging and carrying out tree pruning, thinning and other FireSmart-related fuel treatments and maintaining fuel-treated land. We are examining this in the Peaks and would also seek to involve high school students who would learn forestry skills from professional foresters and arborists.  

• • Provide financial incentives for tree removal and roof-top sprinklers. For many Canmore residents, FireSmarting their homes would involve removing conifer trees that are within 10 metres of their homes, replacing roofs with fire-rated materials, and buying roof-top sprinklers. Since the establishment of FireSmartPeaks, we have received multiple queries from residents about whether the Town provides support in these areas in the same way as the Town of Banff.1 We welcome the recent adoption of the Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Roof Replacement Incentive which is hugely important but would also recommend that the Town also support tree removal and the acquisition of roof top sprinklers, in particular for homes that are at the forefront of the wildland-urban interface.

• • Develop a Town policy on the use of roof-top sprinklers. There is considerable interest in roof-top sprinklers which can be an effective and inexpensive means of mitigating the risk of ember ignitions on roofs. FireSmartPeaks is part of the WASP Community Program which allows us to offer Peaks residents significant discounts on the purchase of WASP sprinklers. We recognize that the potential for widespread use of roof top sprinklers raises concerns about water pressure and that residents must use sprinklers responsibly. To facilitate this, the Town could develop written guidance or policy that would cover such themes as the circumstances in which sprinklers should be activated by residents or when firefighting personnel will perform this role; compilation of addresses of homes in the immediate wildland-urban interface (WUI) that have sprinkler systems and could act as a line of defence; steps that residents should take to set up sprinklers in the event of an evacuation, etc.

[1] The Town of Banff will pay residents the cost of removing conifer trees that are within 10 metres of homes and garages in order to decrease the risk of wildfires sending embers to trees that then ignite buildings. This incentive supports 50 applicants in 2025. Banff also offers financial incentives to homeowners whose homes have an unrated combustible roof system. The Town provides $1,200 per home to help offset the costs. Banff homeowners can also purchase WASP roof sprinkler kits at a discount of $65 from the regular retail price of $240. There are 100 kits available each year.