Plans to manage fire fuel

Photo: B.C. Wildfire Service

A small fire that burned close to Naramata in late-July.

Following the worst fire season ever in the province's history, the Regional District Okanagan Similkameen is stepping up to mitigate the risk of wildfire in urban interface areas.

The RDOS plans to seek more than half-a-million dollars in funding from the Union of B.C. Municipalities to support projects for managing wildfire fuel.

Most of the money would be used for prescribed burns at Ellis Creek, east of Penticton, and at Arawana located east of Naramata.

The two proposed areas, according to a report from RDOS staff, are "an interface wildfire risk to the adjacent community and require fuel hazard abatement to reduce this risk."

The prescribed burns would cost a combined $585,000.

If approved, the UBCM would cover 90 per cent of the costs, which would equate to just over $525,000.

A prescription for the projects would also cost $16,000, which the UBCM would pay 75 per cent of.

The rest of the costs, totalling just over $60,000, would all be covered by different groups — largely by the Wild Sheep Foundation and the Wild Sheep Society of B.C.

This past summer, the provincial government doled out more than $500M to battle wildfires in B.C.