Alberta is committing to a three-decade wildfire defence around Hinton. The province says roughly 200,000 hectares of forest in the region have been weakened by drought and Douglas-fir beetle, raising the risk that a single ignition becomes a major wildfire.
The long-term fuel-management plan, developed with West Fraser, Hinton Wood Products and the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta, will be funded at $16 million a year starting in 2027.
Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen called the Hinton project one of the largest and longest-term wildfire mitigation efforts in Alberta's history. The work is expected to combine fuel breaks, stand treatments and salvage of beetle-killed timber.
West Fraser vice-president Keith Murray said the approach tackles forest health and wildfire risk together, an acknowledgement that dead and dying stands change how fires behave and how safely crews can fight them.
For foothills communities, the plan is a bet on prevention: decades of steady fuel work, funded well beyond a single budget cycle, to lower the odds of a catastrophic fire season.
