With a dry, wooded environment, the Anarchist Mountain community has put considerable effort into fire prevention, achieving and renewing FireSmart status. Pictured here, local residents are shown fire resistant products at an educational event two summers ago. Earlier this month the community tested its EnCOMM system to notify residents in the event of an emergency. (Richard McGuire file photo)
The Anarchist Mountain community is clearing up fire hazards at a local park as an event for National FireSmart Preparedness Day on Saturday.
Mark McKenney, president of the Anarchist Mountain Community Society, said his community was one of 24 across Canada that’s receiving a $500 award that will go towards the event.
The cleanup starts at 10 a.m. at Sasquatch Pond Park, which is just off Highway 3 on Sasquatch Road.
“Anyone from the public is welcome to join us whether they live on Anarchist Mountain or not,” said McKenney.
The park belongs to the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) and the community will be relying on volunteers to remove brush that could be a fire hazard, McKenney said.
“It really needs to be brushed out and to have the fire fuel reduced because it’s pretty dense in there,” said McKenney. “It is RDOS parkland so any member of the public has a right to go in there and enjoy the area if they wish, which also means there’s an opportunity for a fire.”
If safe weather conditions permit, the dead material will be burned on Saturday under supervision, he said.
Meanwhile, the Anarchist Mountain community conducted a second test of its emergency notification system for residents on April 11.
The system, which uses a combination of email and phone messages, was first tested last September.
The EnCOMM system is intended to notify residents of a real emergency in the area such as a serious wildfire. Four local residents – Wendy Barlow, Sue McEvoy, Carolyne Strohlman and Richard Douziech – organized the test.
In the recent test, 93 per cent of participating residents received either a direct phone message that they answered or they opened an email message that the test was occurring. Some received both.
Once residents receive the message, a manual phone tree is activated and participating residents make calls to at least two neighbours.
In the recent test, between 75 and 100 per cent of residents in various subdivisions reported that they were successful in reaching their neighbours, McKenney said.
He added that many property owners on Anarchist Mountain are non-residents. Letters were recently sent to these people explaining the program and inviting them to participate, he added.
The four community members involved in the system are now auxiliary fire department members.
This establishes a formal link between the EnComm system and the Anarchist Mountain Fire Department, McKenney said.
In the event of a fire, the volunteer fire department would be engaged in fighting it, while the EnComm system is a community run program, he added.
“All in all it’s a pretty cool system,” said McKenney. “I’ve never heard of another community doing this, though I suspect there are, but it beats the old dial the telephone stuff.”
The fact that the system had a 93-per-cent hit rate is an indication that a small number of email addresses or phone numbers were incorrect or had changed, McKenney said.
In addition to winning the National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day award for its FireSmart community program, the local FireSmart program was recertified for 2015.
This recognition means the community takes regular steps to educate residents on how to make their properties FireSmart by reducing combustibles and other fire hazards and by doing emergency planning.
Sponsors of National Wildfire Community Preparedness Day and the award are The Co-operators Insurance, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction and the National Fire Protection Association.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
