Hinton FireSmart Event June 7, 2003

FERIC's Wildland Fire Operations Research Group was involved in the 2003 FireSmart event held in Hinton on June 7th.The objective of this event was to educate the public on how they can protect their family and property from wildfire. The FireSmart program was presented in three sections - landscape level fire management, techniques to minimise the influence of fire at the community level and techniques and equipment that can be used and purchased by individual homeowners.

FERIC has a number of research projects that were highlighted at FireSmart. These include investigating the use of sprinkler systems for home protection, understanding the influence of thinning on fire behaviour as it relates to community protection and debris management and commercial thinning at landscape levels.

The most popular of FERIC's presentations was a physical demonstration of the fire ignition potential of ATV's. FERIC demonstrated that exhaust system surface temperatures easily pass the temperature required to ignite fine fuels such as dried grass very quickly. A 90 second ride resulted in an exhaust system hot enough to cause grass to smoulder!! Many observing this demonstration commented, "I didn't know that" so a segment of the population went away learning something - which was FireSmart's intent.

Other agencies involved in FireSmart include: Parks Canada, the Foothills Model Forest, the Town of Hinton (Fire Department), Weldwood of Canada Ltd., Yellowhead County and Alberta Sustainable Resource Development - Forest Protection.