December 2023 – Service Begins!
Home Owners & FireCare Community Services Association
Protect Your Property & Home from Wildfire
FireCare’s goal is to help Homeowners make their property, home and family safer from wildfire. We provide Homeowners a detailed Property Risk Assessments (PRA).
How Wildfires Work – Remediated Property
Remediation involves removing as much of the fuel as possible to both cool a Wildfire, and to slow it down.
How Wildfires Work – Cool Burn Through
A cleaned up property pushes fire down from the trees and onto the ground where it will burn slowly with less heat. Here are some key points…
- Limbing will help keep the fire on the ground
- Thinning will help pull the fire down from the trees
- Worker involvement from raking and chipping to tree removal
- FireCare Training and Knowledge helps ‘Promote Safety’
- Machines Do a Lot of the Work
- Chainsaws should ‘not’ be operated in Summer heat
- Backyard fires may be banned more of the year
- Chippers will be used instead
- And Trucks, Ropes and Pulleys make the work safer
Properly Trained Workers with Safety Equipment, Chainsaws, Chippers, and Rakes can quickly make a property and home much safer from Wildfire.
Removing limbs and smaller trees can take a dense wooded area…
From this:
To this:
Above and below, you’ll notice the Trees are well spaced. This important Safety margin will:
- Cool and slow a Wildfire
- Pull the fire back to the ground
Many Home Owners may be thinking, “But, I Love My Trees.”
We definitely understand that, and if a tree or two are special, they can be protected – make sure to let your FireCare Operator know. Our Operators and Workers will make them as safe as possible by limbing the tree, and by removing additional trees behind them.
It’s the Embers that Get You
Flat, Flammable Surfaces are Ember traps. Hot Embers falling onto wooden decks, wooden roofs, firewood or anything with tinder such as gutters filled with pine needles are why 50% of homes are lost according to FireSmart BC.
How to Defend Against Embers
Once the Paths of Fire have been mitigated, Embers are your biggest concern.
- Ensure all firewood is moved 10 metres away from the home
- Make certain gutters are cleared every Spring
- Remove as many flat wooden surfaces as possible
- Have buckets or pile of sand ready to cover remaining surfaces
FireCare Solutions for the Home Owner
We provide a Property Risk Assessment (PRA) where we walk around your property with you in order to determine hazards. A Property Map indicates a List of Tasks for remediation. Icons are used to represent Hazards or items on the property, as well as benefits. A multi-page PRA is prepared and emailed to the Homeowner.
The FireCare PRA is the ‘Game Plan’ for how to remediate a property of increased Wildfire Risk Factors. It will:
- Be conducted by appointment with the Home Owner or Care Taker present in approx. 30-45 minutes
- List the Tasks, Skills, Tools and Safety Equipment
- Define the skills needed and determines work load
Our Operators survey the property with the Home Owner or Care Taker, and provides the PRA’s, assemble teams, train, and undertake PRA Tasks. Our Workers undertake PRA Tasks as well.
- FireCare handles all paper work and eliminates most overhead
- Our Operators select the Workers and creates a team for each individual property
- Billing and payment
- Remittances to WorkSafe and Revenue Canada
- Fuel and usage costs
Recommended Solutions to be Accomplished
Once the Home Owner receives the PRA, they decide what tasks they are willing to complete themselves and what, if any, tasks they wish FireCare Operators and Workers to do. The Home Owner will be provided an expected cost of the Day Job in advance. Day jobs can be ‘partial or full’ days with a ‘maximum’ of 8 billable hours – no overtime is allowed.
All FireCare Operators and Workers are fully covered by WorkSafe BC.
FireCare has the Skills, Tools and Safety Equipment to help with most of the work, and we can call in professionals for the rest, if needed, such as tree felling.
The first step is easy!
Just fill out our Property Risk Assessment Form
For more information on protecting your home, property and family – check out these pages:
Property Risk Assessment | Home Owner PRA Sign Up | About FireCare
Workers | Contact Us
Let us know how we can assist you.
FireCare Community Services Association
A British Columbia Non-Profit Association