Nova Scotia working on new federal funding for wildfire management

Nova Scotia is working on a new funding agreement for federal money to help combat wildfires over the next several years.

Ottawa announced earlier this month that more than $65 million in federal funding has been committed so far in six agreements through the $256-million Fighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate – Equipment Fund.

Nova Scotia is one of the six provinces and territories to have received money from the fund, which was announced in the 2022-23 budget year.

Department of Natural Resources and Renewables spokeswoman Patricia Jreige said Wednesday that wildfire is Nova Scotia’s biggest climate change risk and it needs to be prepared.

“The province received nearly $1 million from in March to cover the cost of some investments we had already made in incident management training and wildland fire fighting equipment,” she said.

That included wildfire suppression tools, first responder personal protective equipment, portable radios and a wildfire incident support trailer.

She said the province is now working on four-year agreement for federal funding.

“We will invest in more equipment and training to manage these fires and make sure our firefighters stay safe,” she said. “We don’t have any firm details to share at this time.”

The department has spent $7.6 million fighting wildfires this year, Jreige said. The wildfire season runs from mid-March to mid-October, so the number may change before the season ends. The bulk of that cost was for wildfires in Halifax, Shelburne and Digby counties in May.

This year has seen the highest recorded losses nationally and in Nova Scotia in terms or hectares of land burned by wildfires.

Ottawa said earlier this month that with climate change causing wildfires to become more frequent and more severe across Canada, it is working to strengthen the country’s ability to adapt to a changing climate.

It said in a release that single- and multi-year agreements with Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories and Yukon will support the efforts to strengthen capacities and capabilities in fire management by procuring specialized wildland firefighting equipment such as fire crew trucks and personal protective equipment.

British Columbia and the Northwest Territories recently signed agreements to access the maximum available funding under this program: more than $28.5 million for the Northwest Territories and $32 million for British Columbia over five years.

The federal government said the six agreements are “the first of many that will further strengthen fire management capacities and capabilities across the country by facilitating the purchase of wildland firefighting equipment to increase capacity to respond and prepare for wildland fires.”

The agreements are in addition to the first phase of a Wildland Firefighter Training Fund that will train up to 630 firefighters and 125 Indigenous fire guardians and pilot Responding to the Interface training for municipal firefighters who will have to deal with interface fires, which are wildfires that burn into residential areas.

The government is also putting money into what it calls the “one-of-a-kind WildFireSat satellite mission.”

That’s a plan to monitor all active wildfires in Canada from space on a daily basis. The primary goal of WildFireSat is to support wildfire management, while providing Canadians with more precise information on smoke and air quality conditions.