The Government of Alberta is providing a $900,000 boost to the Alberta fire weather network to upgrade equipment, protect at-risk communities, and improve wildfire response.
The Government of Alberta is investing an additional $900,000 over three years, for a total of $1.9 million, for upgrades to the province’s fire weather network and to add new stations to key locations. The real-time data provided by the network will assist Alberta Wildfire in staying ahead of potential threats, guiding response teams, and ensuring resources are deployed to where they are needed most.
RMA is pleased with the province’s additional investments in the fire weather network and the construction of new weather stations, which will increase the amount and quality of available fire weather data. This is a step in the right direction towards actioning recommendations 9 and 11 from RMA’s Wildfire Working Group Report, released in February 2025, which recommended:
- That municipalities use a data-driven, threat-based approach to determining their firefighting service level. This would include using existing information such as historic fire weather data and newly acquired information such as detailed fuel and fire risk mapping; and
- That the Government of Alberta and Government of Canada provide access to fuel inventory and fire behaviour data to municipalities in a manner that is practicable for their purposes. This should be supplemented with spatial data on critical infrastructure, both municipal and others such as pipelines and electricity distribution.
With that said, recommendation 11 also calls on the data to be provided in a manner practicable for their purposes, and recommendation 12 recommended that the Government of Alberta develop and offer training to municipal staff on how to use various available fire data sets. Increasing investment in the development of weather stations is helpful, but without appropriate training for municipalities, it may not be effectively utilized at a local level during major fire events.
RMA will continue to advocate for additional training as we continue to work with the Government of Alberta and other stakeholders in actioning the 31 recommendations stemming from the Wildfire Working Group Report.
Joseph Kay
Policy Advisor
780.554.4161
joseph@RMAlberta.com
Wyatt Skovron
General Manager of Policy & Advocacy
780.955.4096
wyatt@RMAlberta.com