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🍂Fall 2025 Newsletter

Hi! Your friends at FireSmart Canada here. 🦊

It's already October and we can't be-leaf it! As the temperatures fall and sweater weather begins, it's the perfect time of year to apply FireSmart principles around your home without sweating through every shirt you own.

To help you get started, FireSmart Canada has a wide variety of fact sheets - perfect for printing and sharing with your neighbours!

➡️ *New FireSmart Shipping Containers fact sheet
➡️ FireSmart Decks and Porches
➡️ FireSmart Fences
➡️ FireSmart Gutters and Eaves
➡️ FireSmart Roofs
➡️ FireSmart Siding
➡️ FireSmart Windows and Doors
➡️ FireSmart Yards

This fall, take the opportunity to reflect on Canada's second most severe wildfire season on record and learn how to prepare yourself, your family, and your community for the increasing threat of wildland fire.

👉 All FireSmart Canada Resources

🗓️Save the date: November 1

This year, FireSmart Canada has combined our NRP Incentive and Prep Day application periods. Moving forward, these application periods will run during the same timeframe. This means that starting November 1, individuals and communities can apply for:

➡️ The Neighbourhood Recognition Program Incentive.
➡️ The Wildfire Community Preparedness Day Award.

New: The application period for the programs listed above will run from November 1, 2025 to January 31, 2026.

Mark your calendars, late applications will no longer be accepted!

Exceptions: 

➡️ Renewing your status (returning applicants) as a Recognized Neighbourhood will run from November 1 to March 31, 2026.

➡️ First time applications for becoming a Recognized Neighbourhood will also run from November 1 to March 31, 2026.

FireSmart Tips & Tricks

Fall is the perfect time to start preparing for next year's fire season. Cleaning up your yard now will reduce the available fuels in spring. It's also a great time to cut the grass before the snow falls.

🌿Start by cleaning up any leaves or dead and dying plant material within 1.5 metres of any structure (the Immediate Zone).

🌱Cut your grass! Ensuring your grass is 10 centimetres or less will help slow down any potential wildland fires and ultimately reduce the risk of it carrying into nearby fuels.

🏡Clean under your deck. Dispose of unwanted items or materials and put toys into storage.

🌲Prune all trees to a height of 2 metres from the ground. Remove all branches that touch, or are close to, your home or other structures.

Simple actions, starting at the Immediate Zone and extending outwards, will reduce the likelihood of your home being damaged or destroyed by wildland fire.

👉 Check out our new Landscaping Guide!

Begins at Home app:
Re-launching this October!

The FireSmart Canada Begins at Home app is a mobile app designed to be used for residential self-assessments. It is available in French and English, on both Apple and Android devices.

After listening to our community across the country, a number of changes were identified to improve the user experience. FireSmart Canada heard everyone loud and clear! This is why we are excited to announce the re-launch of our app, with improvements such as:

• Mitigation recommendations will now be listed following an individual's self-assessment. The recommendations will be organized into two key components: immediate or future actions to take.

• A “To-Do” list will now be included along with a progress tracker.

• An option to upload pictures throughout the assessment.

• Notification options to remind users of scheduled actions as well as seasonal reminders.

• More robust “did you know?” and “learn more” sections.

These improvements are anticipated to be complete early October. Additional communications will be sent out when it becomes available.

Community Highlight:
Marten Beach, AB

Celebrating 10 years of community and 10 years of wildfire preparedness!

Marten Beach is a community that is no stranger to the threat of approaching wildfires. This year alone, Marten Beach was put on an evacuation alert for most of the summer due to a wildfire burning just to the east of the Hamlet.

This is one of the many reasons why the community has been participating in Wildfire Community Preparedness Day, since its inception in 2015.

To celebrate their 10-year milestone, a large Wildfire Community Preparedness Day event was held in August. Dan Tarney, Marten Beach's FireSmart Community Champion, along with his neighbours, carried out a number of Advanced Home Assessments throughout the Hamlet.

In addition to individual Advanced Home Assessments, the community worked together to reduce their shared fuel load on both public and private lands. At the end of the day, a BBQ was held to celebrate the days hard work and to provide community members the opportunity to connect with each other.

FireSmart Canada, FireSmart Alberta, and Alberta Wildfire also participated! To encourage others to begin their own FireSmart journey, Marten Beach took part in a short documentary, showcasing how the community has come together over the past decade. This video will be released in the coming months by FireSmart Canada. Stay tuned!

FireSmart Champion Highlight:
Simon Bagshaw, Canmore, AB

Simon Bagshaw has lived in Canmore’s Peaks of Grassi neighbourhood with his family since July 2020. Prior to moving to Canmore, Simon lived in Switzerland where he spent his career working in international humanitarian response. He’s now focusing on issues closer to home and in January 2025 co-founded FireSmartPeaks - the Peaks of Grassi FireSmart Committee.

The 2024 Jasper wildfire was a key motivation for establishing the committee as was the recognition that wildfire seasons are becoming longer and more intense. Canmore’s a wildfire-prone community and the Peaks of Grassi neighbourhood in particular, surrounded as it is by dense, overgrown, conifer forest and steep slopes.

Working with a small group of neighbours, FireSmartPeaks was formed to mobilise and support residents in the Peaks of Grassi to take practical actions to reduce the risk of wildfire in the neighbourhood while also working towards the Neighbourhood Recognition Program.

Planning is underway for next year’s events. Simon and the committee are also exploring establishing a “community forest” through which residents of the Peaks of Grassi would steward forested areas in the neighbourhood, including planning, raising funds for and implementing fuel treatments, in consultation with the Town of Canmore and relevant professionals. Simon and the committee would also like to involve local youth in the community forest initiative by organising a program for high school students where they could learn about forests and forest management, develop career and life skills while making a difference in their community.

👉 Learn more about FireSmartPeaks

Myth busting

❌Myth: You need to remove all trees within your Home Ignition Zone.

✅Fact: FireSmart Canada recommends removing trees and other fuels within 1.5 metres of a structure (the Immediate Zone). Beyond 1.5 metres, spacing and pruning is key - not elimination.

Fuels within the Intermediate Zone (1.5 to 10 metres) should be managed so they don’t carry fire or radiant heat to your home. This means:

• Planting fire-resistant vegetation and selecting non-combustible landscaping materials.
• Avoiding the use of any woody debris, including mulch.
• Keeping combustible items like firewood piles, construction materials, patio furniture, tools, and decorative pieces out of this zone.
• Creating a non-combustible ground cover, like gravel, underneath and 1.5 metres surrounding trailers, recreational vehicles, and sheds.
• Favouring deciduous plants over coniferous as they are less flammable.

The goal in the Extended Zone (10 to 30 metres) is not to eliminate fire, but to slow its spread and reduce its intensity. FireSmart Canada encourages neighbours to work together to:

• Selectively remove trees to create at least three metres of horizontal space between the single or grouped tree crowns (this may require the help of an arborist or forestry professional).
• Prune all branches to a height of two metres from the ground.
• Regularly clean up accumulations of fallen branches, dry grass, and needles to eliminate potential surface fuels.

Learn more about  the Home Ignition Zone

In the news

This summer, CBC's 'What on Earth' explored the costs, challenges, and benefits of applying FireSmart principles at home. 

Episode name: Here’s how to fireproof your home. But can you afford it?

Episode description: "Move the propane tank, clear the toys, replace the deck. When guest host Johanna Wagstaffe asks a FireSmart assessor for advice on safeguarding her home from wildfires, she’s left with a long to-do list – from simple to pricey. Then, we visit Canada’s first FireSmart community, Logan Lake, to hear how those efforts helped protect it from a mega fire. And we ask whether funding for wildfire prevention is keeping up with the growing risk."

Length of podcast: 29 minutes

🎧 Listen here