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City seeking funding for wildfire prevention plan

The city is seeking provincial government money to help pay for an update of its plan to keep Prince George from being overrun by wildfires.
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A plume of smoke from one of the massive wildfires that struck the Cariboo this summer.

The city is seeking provincial government money to help pay for an update of its plan to keep Prince George from being overrun by wildfires.

The move comes in the wake of this summer's series of massive forest fires which sent more than 10,000 evacuees into the city.

Other than heavy smoke, Prince George was unaffected but the event did revive a concern the city could become a victim.

"As a city in the forest, Prince George is susceptible to the impacts of wildfires," the city's engineering and public works general manager Dave Dyer said in a report to council.

The city's most recent plan dates back to 2005 and was drafted in advance of securing a licence to harvest beetle-killed pine out of the 3,880 hectares of undeveloped Crown land within the municipal boundary.

In 2014, the city relinquished the licence after the high-risk areas had been cleared. By then about 44,000 cubic metres of scaled timber, mostly dead pine, had been removed and used in local mills.

The total cost of revising the plan has been put at $90,000. The city can secure up to $22,500 from the strategic wildfire prevention initiative for the work.

City council authorized staff to apply for the funding at its Oct. 16 regular meeting

In September, Fraser-Fort George Regional District directors also directed staff to seek funding from the SWPI.