Canmore Has a New Five-Year Plan to Prepare for Wildfire

Canmore has updated the document that will guide how the town prepares for wildfire over the next five years, with a growing focus on what residents can do around their own homes.

The new Wildfire Mitigation Strategy replaces a plan adopted in 2018 and lays out Canmore's priorities for everything from clearing vegetation and preparing firefighters to changing development rules and helping residents make their properties more resistant to fire.

But one of the biggest messages in the new strategy is aimed directly at homeowners: a major wildfire threat can come from embers travelling well ahead of the flames.

“Wildfire is the town’s top-rated hazard,” said Simon Bagshaw, Canmore’s regional FireSmart co-ordinator.

Under the right conditions, wind-driven embers can travel up to two kilometres ahead of a wildfire. They can land in gutters, beneath decks or among combustible materials such as firewood, bark mulch and juniper, potentially igniting a home even when it isn't immediately beside a burning forest. The strategy warns that those initial fires can then spread from one structure to another.

That's also why Canmore has made an interesting change from its previous wildfire strategy.

The 2018 document included a map dividing areas around Canmore into low, moderate, high and extreme wildfire behaviour potential. The new public strategy doesn't.

Bagshaw said the Town doesn't want someone living in an area previously labelled low or moderate risk to assume they don't need to prepare their property.

“We don’t want residents to look at the map and think, ‘My house is in a low, moderate-risk area, therefore I don’t actually need to do anything,’” he said.

Instead, the strategy emphasizes relatively straightforward things residents can do themselves: create a 1.5-metre non-combustible area around a home, remove leaves and needles from roofs and gutters, move firewood away from buildings and replace combustible landscaping such as bark mulch and juniper.

The previous strategy was already calling for more work around private homes. In 2018, the Town found that vegetation management by residents immediately surrounding their properties had been “minimal” and identified it as a priority for the following five years.

There are signs more residents are now taking part.

Before 2023, Canmore Fire-Rescue completed an average of about 10 free FireSmart home assessments each year. During an assessment, Fire-Rescue looks at a property for things that could make a home more vulnerable to wildfire, then gives the resident recommendations for reducing that risk. That can include changes to vegetation, landscaping and combustible materials around the home. Demand has climbed sharply, with 74 assessments completed in 2024 and 132 in 2025.

Canmore now has 17 residents serving as neighbourhood “champions,” essentially volunteers who help organize wildfire-prevention work among their neighbours, including cleanups and other efforts to reduce combustible material around properties. Four were added this year.

The Town also launched a free bin program this year so neighbourhoods have somewhere to dispose of branches, leaves, mulch, juniper and other combustible yard waste collected during cleanups. All 11 available bins were booked, and the Town hopes to double that number next year if funding is available.

A cleanup in Peaks of Grassi alone removed about 30 tonnes of material in 2025.

The new strategy targets annual increases of 10 percent in requests for home assessments and participation in neighbourhood FireSmart programs.

What About The Forest Around Canmore?

The increased focus on individual properties doesn't mean Canmore is shifting wildfire preparation entirely onto residents.

More than 230 hectares of fuel-reduction work has been completed within Canmore since 2010, and work has begun on the Canyon Ridge project.

There is also the much larger Bow Valley Community Fireguard, a separate provincial project around Canmore. As of April, more than 1,200 hectares had been harvested and another 66 hectares mechanically thinned.

But the Town's message is that those projects can't eliminate the risk to individual homes.

The Community Fireguard can slow a wildfire and provide strategic places for firefighters to respond, but the strategy explicitly warns that it doesn't remove the need for homeowners to prepare their properties for embers.

Why Doesn't Canmore Subsidize Rooftop Sprinklers?

One area where Canmore and Banff have taken different approaches is rooftop sprinklers.

Banff makes up to 100 subsidized sprinkler kits available annually. Residents who complete a FireSmart home assessment can purchase one for $65.

Canmore doesn't currently have a comparable program.

Bagshaw said sprinklers may reduce a home's vulnerability, but they don't solve the underlying problem if combustible materials remain around the property.

“While external sprinklers may reduce a home’s vulnerability, the home can remain susceptible to ember ignitions if fuel sources such as mulch and juniper are not removed,” he said.

The Town's strategy also points to limited publicly available research on residential sprinkler systems and raises concerns about homeowners running them continuously during a wildfire, potentially putting additional pressure on the water supply when firefighters need it.

Mayor Sean Krausert also cautioned against directly comparing Canmore with Banff.

“We have to be very careful about comparing ourselves to Banff,” Krausert said. “Banff is just over four square kilometres. Canmore’s over 68 square kilometres. We’re 17 times larger.”

Canmore is now working with neighbouring municipalities through the Bow Valley Inter-Agency Wildfire Committee on guidance for external sprinklers. For now, residents are advised to operate them only when directed by the Town or firefighting personnel.

Could FireSmart Eventually Become Mandatory?

There's another significant difference between Canmore and Banff.

Banff's Community Standards Bylaw prohibits certain wildfire hazards within 10 metres of buildings, including bark mulch, dead vegetation, long grass and improperly stored firewood. Municipal officers can order property owners to address violations.

Canmore doesn't currently have comparable requirements for existing properties. Its approach relies largely on education, voluntary home assessments, neighbourhood programs and incentives.

That could eventually change.

Asked whether Canmore could move toward mandatory requirements for homeowners, Bagshaw said they are “one of several tools available.”

A 2025 review identified 25 opportunities to strengthen FireSmart practices in Canmore's policies and bylaws. The Town plans to develop an implementation plan alongside its Land Use Bylaw rewrite, which is scheduled for completion in 2028.

For now, though, the new strategy's immediate message is much simpler: Canmore can thin forests, build fireguards and prepare firefighters, but homeowners still have a role to play in determining whether an ember that reaches their property becomes a fire.