The federal government is doubling its investment to train urban firefighters to battle wildfires – a growing threat to Canada’s cities and towns.
That’s twice the sum spent last year on 25 instructors who then trained more than 300 firefighters in Chilliwack and Kamloops, B.C, and Grand Prairie, Alta. In 2021 a wildfire razed the village of Lytton, B.C. and in 2023 wildfires tore through neighbourhoods in Halifax and Kelowna, B.C., and forced the evacuation of the entire city of Yellowknife.