Ontario averages over 1,300 wildfires each year from Georgian Bay to Hudson’s Bay and about half of these are started by people. Every year people and property are threatened by wildland fires. Many of these fires occur in areas called the urban interface zone where homes, cottages and subdivisions are built into the forest landscape.
Is your property at risk?
FireSmart (Fire Smart Canada) is a Ministry of Natural Resources program that provides information to help communities and homeowners take action and protect their properties and adjacent natural resources from the risk of wildfires.
To find out if your property is at risk, look through the Home Owners FireSmart Manual (For the link, click here Link; for the actual file, click here Home Owners Fire Smart Manual ) . Then you can complete the home owner’s survey on your own property and assess the potential risk of loss due to a wildfire. Use the risk assessment in the manual to show you where you may need to do some work to protect your home and property.
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Seguin Fire Services (FIRE) offers the following advice:
Eliminate the Risk
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When you are discarding smoking materials you must make sure that they are cooled and put in a fire proof container.
When you build a fire pit there are a few things that need to be done. Clear the area around the fire pit, use rocks to build a barrier for the hot coals and flames. Make sure the fire is located on sand or rock so it doesn’t burn into the tree roots. For more fire pit building ideas visit the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR).
When you are extinguishing your camp fire you must make sure that all of the coals and fire are completely extinguished and cooled using water.
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What to do
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If you come across a forest fire stay calm, call 911 immediately. Be sure that you know the name of the road that you are on and the nearest Fire Route number. This will give first responders the quickest response to the emergency. Depending on weather conditions and size of fire you may be required to leave the area