You may see smoke rising from parts of Westbank First Nation over the next few days and weeks.

Controlled burns take place as part of the forest fire mitigation project.

On Monday, fires were lit near the WFN government’s Lindley building, above Sneena Road.

The work is undertaken in cold and snowy weather.

“With the funding we have received, which the Westbank First Nation has received, we are carrying out a fuel mitigation project on both reserves, 9 and 10,” said Jacquie Biblow, of the communications and communications office. community engagement.

WFN was awarded a grant of $ 280,000 under the Community FireSmart Community Resilience Investment (CRI) program. Work began last fall and should be completed in the spring.

Biblow said fuel mitigation has already been done at Bear Creek and on the WFN Cutlands, adjacent to A&W.

“The idea, hopefully, is for everything to be finished by April 2022 for this round of burning. We’re ahead of schedule, so it’s possible that it’s February, based on the information we received this morning. It all depends on whether the snow keeps coming. This is obviously going to affect our days of ventilation and the approval of the Ministry (of the environment).

The objective of the project is to treat potential fuels from forest fires by thinning, pruning and burning or chipping. The contract for forest fire mitigation has been awarded to Ntityix Development Corporation, which works with the subcontractor Tronson Logging.