07/24/2026
This is how community risk reduction works in a small town. 🔥🏘️
With a wildfire active near our home in the Pemberton area, the FireSmart team has been out in the community reminding folks to keep their properties cleared — and this week Fire-ED got to join them at a public event at N’Quatqua First Nation.
No time for a full program that day — just enough for kids to sit down, “dress” a storyboard, and hear about hazards room by room: front yard, living room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom/hallway, bedroom… and the fire station, set a little further away to show it’s across town. Every hazard they spotted got a checkmark. We even ran through how a fire can start from something as small as a candle left burning.
Tribal police, chief and council, educators, and the preschool all stopped by. Some of our adult neighbours got right down on the floor to dress the storyboards themselves. Word spread table to table — the preschool director came by, took a card, and wants to bring us in for a full demonstration at the school. The FireSmart coordinator gathered details on our Wildfire Edition kit (two extra storyboards on outdoor hazards) to bring back to leadership, and another agency has already asked about having us out to demonstrate too.
No hesitation, just an open door and a community ready to learn together.