Some preparations are being done by the provincial government ahead of the start of the wildfire season.
Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen says there are a number of things happening on that front.
“This is time of year when we’re hiring our wildland firefighters and making sure they can get through the fitness test and the other tests that they have to do. We’ve been doing a lot of work through the winter on protecting communities from wildfire with our hazardous fuel reduction program and bringing down some of the more volatile trees around communities to try and protect them. We’ve been looking at how we fight wildfires with water bombers and looking towards the future.”
The province recently announced the purchase of five new water bombers to strengthen their response to wildfires.
Loewen says the aircraft are critical infrastructure for wildfire response.
“We currently have four water bombers that we use that are government owned and then we contract about 14 more each year. The four that we own, they were built between ’88 and ’86. They’ve been maintained very well, but we do want to make sure can add to those water bombers and make sure that we add with the new technology and the bigger and faster planes.”
The government is spending $400 million on the new planes.
You can listen to the full interview below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
