The Mayor of Logan Lake says work to FireSmart the community southwest of Kamloops was taking place before the program was even invented.

Robin Smith says a lot of that work was done before she was officially elected as mayor in 2018, noting the community of about 2,000 people has been preparing for the past 18 years.

“We really really want to encourage other communities to reach out because if we can share our story and if we can make any other communities any safer, that’s what we want to be doing and I think that’s what we need to be doing,” she said.

“We were very fortunate and others weren’t.”

Logan Lake was designated as the first Fire Smart community in Canada back in 2013.

Smith says residents there saw the benefits of all of that work this month when the Tremont Creek fire forced the evacuation of the community of about 2,000 people on August 12. No structures were destroyed even though the burned into Logan Lake’s municipal limits.

“There was a lot of work done by community leaders and they are not always politicians,” Smith added. “A lot of them are just leaders in your communities that are doing other jobs that take on pieces of the puzzle and what that looks like. We today are seeing the benefit of what that can do.”

“If there is anything we can do to be of assistance to any other communities that want to get on board, and get working on FireSmart, we are happy to help.”

Smith’s comments came after a meeting with B.C. Premier John Horgan and Forests Minister, Katrine Conroy, Friday afternoon.

“We want to see that we’re duplicating this across the province,” Conroy said, after an aerial tour of the area, which included a flight over nearby Monte Lake where the White Rock Lake Fire destroyed homes earlier this month.

“For those who have not yet seen the devastation, it was profound,” Horgan added.

The Premier also noted his experience with the devastating fire seasons of 2017, 2018, and now 2021 has led to discussions to ensure the province’s wildfire efforts take place around the year, instead of just in the summer months.

“A certain amount of money is in the budget [every year] and if you go over that you dip into contingencies and I don’t think we should be putting our communities at risk based on contingencies,” he said.

“If we have resources at the front end of the year, the BC Wildfire Service can retain people to assist with FireSmart, can create guards around those interface communities. That’s got to be the way we go forward.”

– With files from Colton Davies