On Dec. 20 council agreed to resolve and authorize District of Houston staff to apply to the Strategic Wildfire PreventionInitiative (SWPI) for $22,500 in funding for the Community Wildifire Protection Plan project. With this funding the District ofHouston’s contribution to the project cost would be $7500. If denied funding the project will not proceed.
SWPI supports community initiatives to mitigate the risk from wildfires in the wild land urban interface. The plan identifies areas within Houston that would require maintenance treatments in order to reduce local fire hazards. The program was updated in 2006, but since then Community Wildfire Protection Plans, established by the Ministry of Forests, Lands andNatural Resources have change.
The District of Houston staff plan is to do a sole source contract offer to a consultant that is familiar of the recently updated criteria manual, rather than obtain two quotes from potential suppliers, which is required by the Purchasing Policy for projects under $25,000 in order to ensure compliance with provincial statues and regulations.
“The plan we have in place is from 2006, which means it should be updated. We’ve done a lot of improvements over the years,so it would be good to have better picture of what we have here in the community to move forward,” said Jim Daigneault,Chief of the Houston Volunteer Fire Department.
