Western Canada has been inundated with significant wildfire events over the last few years. Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia all suffered large scale evacuations and damages which seen insured and uninsured costs run into the billions of dollars. These catastrophic events caused significant upset for the provinces, individuals and businesses. Residents, businesses, and insurers need to rethink how they manage their risks when living and working in wildland urban interface environments.

Through this presentation we are going to discuss the legislation regarding wildfire prevention, how to identify wildfire threats, identifying wildland urban/ industrial interfaces, basic FireSmart principals, and simple solutions to make your business or job site defensible from an encroaching wildfire.

Speaker Bio:

Kris Liivam, President of Arctic Fire Safety Services, has been involved in safety consulting for 18 years. During this time he has worked for such organizations as TransCanada Pipelines, Honeywell, and KEYera. As well, Mr. Liivam taught part time at the Medicine Hat Community College, as an extinction of the University of Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Certificate Program. In 2015, Kris identified the need to expand the Private- Public Partnerships between wildfire agencies and businesses and created a wildfire suppression business. Kris pushed government agencies to rethink their resiliency plans to incorporate private entities in their catastrophic responses. Arctic Fire Safety Services has been involved in fires of note, such as the Fort McMurray fires and the Waterton Fire.