The province is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best when it comes to wildfires across Alberta.
Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen says preparations have been in the works for months including investing in fire safety programs and initiatives such as the Community Fireguard Program. As well this year the province has invested in additional crews and technology to support wild fire firefighting efforts, including a pair of new night vision-equipped helicopters.
He says this year there will be 13 different crews on rotation who will be able to work 24 hours a day, including at night. While wildfire officials will also start implementing the use of AI technology to help deal with wildfires across Alberta.
“What that is allowing us to do is input an enormous amount of information into the system and then it will spit out recommendations on where they will want to put crews and use resources as we plan for the wildfire season,” Loewen says.
According to the minister, leading up to this years wildfire season there have been conversations between the province and municipalities, along with fire chiefs across the province and these conversations will be ongoing throughout the season. He explains when fighting fires these groups’ local knowledge and expertise are extremely helpful because they know the area and terrain better than those coming from other parts of the province.
However, Loewen says when it comes to the number of crews that are ready to be on the ground and the new technology being implemented he believes the province is in a better position than it was a year ago.
“I think that the difference between last year is there were a number of large fires across the province so it stretched our resources quite a bit.”
Loewen says that there have also been conversations in the past year about the best ways to get information out to the public, between the province and municipal governments, along with making sure that alerts are put out in as many ways as possible including through different apps, the Alberta ALERT system and social media. The goal is to make sure that the message gets out as clearly and concisely as possible.
“One of the biggest things people can do is go to the Alberta wildfire app, and there is a ton of information that people can access on there.”
