Wildfire resilience
FireSmart & Wildfire Mitigation
After Jasper, you already know what a fire moving through a mountain town looks like. The question is whether an ember lands on a defended property or an undefended one.
Most homes in the Bow Valley were built right up against the forest, because that is the whole point of living here. The trade-off is that conifers within a few metres of the wall, branches touching the roof, and dry needles in the gutters turn your house into fuel. During an extreme fire, the danger is rarely the wall of flame. It is the storm of embers that arrives ahead of it and finds the one weak spot.
Waiting has a cost that compounds. Insurers in fire-exposed areas are now asking for proof of mitigation, and some are declining to renew without it. A property that has not been assessed is a property nobody can vouch for, including you, on the day it matters.
FireSmart work is not clear-cutting your yard. It is a sequence based on the Home Ignition Zone: the non-combustible zone from the wall out to 1.5 metres, then thinning and spacing conifer crowns out to 10 metres and beyond so fire cannot ladder up from the ground into the canopy and jump tree to tree. We assess the property, prioritize the highest-risk fuels, and carry out the removal, crown spacing and pruning to FireSmart guidelines.
Jeffrey Lawrence is an ISA Certified Arborist and a certified Wildlife and Dangerous Tree Assessor, so the plan is written by someone who reads a stand of trees for hazard, not just for firewood. Work is fully insured with $5M liability and WCB coverage. Where a Town of Banff or Town of Canmore rebate applies to the removal, we prepare the paperwork so you actually collect it.
Book a FireSmart assessment and you will get a walk-through of your property, the specific fuels that put the house at risk, and a written plan with priorities and pricing. No pressure to do everything in one season.
What that looks like
How we do the work
Home Ignition Zone clearing
Non-combustible 0 to 1.5m zone, plus thinning and spacing out to 10m and past it.
Break the fire ladder
Crown spacing and limbing-up so ground fire cannot climb into the canopy.
Rebate paperwork handled
We prepare the Banff and Canmore removal-incentive documentation for you.
Insurance-ready documentation
Certified assessment records you can hand to your underwriter.
The sequence
How the job runs
On-site assessment
We walk the property and rank fuels by the risk they pose to the structure.
Written mitigation plan
Priorities, methods and pricing, staged so you can budget across seasons.
Careful removal and spacing
Crews carry out clearing, crown spacing and pruning to FireSmart standards.
Cleanup and records
Debris chipped or hauled, and documentation left with you for insurance.
Common questions
FireSmart FAQs
Straight answers to the questions we hear most. Anything else, call and ask.
No. FireSmart is about spacing and separation, not clearing. We keep as much of your landscape as safely possible and focus on the specific fuels closest to the house and the connections that let fire spread from the ground into the canopy. Most properties keep the majority of their trees.
FireSmart & Wildfire Mitigation
Free estimates, itemized quotes and certified work across the Bow Valley.