New Community Wildfire Prevention Grants Now Available, Canadian Business Journal

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, Oct. 12, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company (Wawanesa), in partnership with the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), has partnered with FireSmart™ Canada to develop new community mountains. Provided fire prevention subsidies. Wawanesa and ICLR will make available six grants of up to $15,000 each to help communities across Canada become more resilient to wildfires through prevention and mitigation activities.

Carol Jardine, President of Wawanesa’s Canadian P&C Operations, said: “As a mutual Canadian owned and operated company, we want to help communities across Canada improve their climate resilience and protect themselves, their homes and their businesses. We are working with experts from ICLR and FireSmart Canada to help reduce wildfire risk and make communities across Canada safer and more resilient.”

These grants support prevention, mitigation, and preparedness activities along FireSmart Canada’s seven areas.

• education
• emergency plan
• Vegetation management
• legislation
• development
• Inter-agency cooperation
• cross training

“Between 2008 and 2021, wildfires cost Canadian insurers more than $4.6 billion and over 87,000 claims were filed. It is only part of the overall cost caused by wildfires, as they are affected, livelihoods are disrupted, and individual physical and mental health is affected.” “Wawanesa’s leadership in supporting grants aimed at preventing and mitigating the impacts of wildfires will make communities more resilient to this increasingly prevalent hazard and provide learning opportunities for other communities wanting to take action. and help mitigate the enormous personal toll wildfires have on people and businesses across our country.

“FireSmart Canada is pleased to provide support and information for the Wawanesa Community Wildfire Prevention Grant,” said Ray Oort, Director of FireSmart Canada. “This is an important initiative to help Canadians become more resilient to wildfires.”

Grant applications must be received by December 1, 2022 at 12:00 pm (CST) and will be evaluated by a panel of experts in the field of wildfire prevention from Wawanesa, ICLR, and FireSmart Canada. increase. Grant recipients will be announced on March 1, 2023.

Interested community groups can visit the program web page for project eligibility and application criteria at wawanesa.com/wildfire-grants. Communities across Canada are now accepting submissions.

About Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company
Founded in 1896, Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company is one of Canada’s largest mutual insurance companies with annual revenues of over $4 billion and assets of over $12 billion. Wawanesa Mutual, headquartered in Winnipeg, is the parent company of Wawanesa General, a property and casualty insurance provider in California and Oregon. Wawanesa Life provides life insurance products and services across Canada. Western Financial Group, which sells insurance to individuals and businesses across Canada. Wawanesa serves more than two million of his policyholders in Canada and the United States. Wawanesa actively gives back to organizations that strengthen the communities in which it operates, making donations that far exceed internationally recognized benchmarks for corporate philanthropic excellence. For more information, visit wawanesa.com.

about Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR)
Canada’s premier disaster research institution, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), was established in 1997 by the insurance industry as an independent, non-profit research and outreach organization to champion Canada’s disaster resilience. it was done. ICLR is an international Center of Excellence affiliated with Western University. The Institute develops and advocates evidence-based disaster safety solutions that homeowners, businesses and governments can implement to strengthen their resilience to disasters. For more information, please visit www.iclr.org.

About FireSmart™ Canada
FireSmart Canada was founded over 20 years ago to address common concerns about wildfires in wildland urban interfaces. Since then, FireSmart Canada has led the development of resources and programs designed to empower the public and increase community resilience to wildfires across Canada. FireSmart Canada operates under a mandate from Canada’s Interagency Forest Fire Center and is supported by federal, provincial and territorial wildfire management agencies and partners with local governments and the private sector. For more information, visit firesmartcanada.ca.

For more information:

Brad Hartle
Senior Communications Specialist, Media Relations
Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company
Phone: 1-844-946-6282
[email protected]

CBJ Newsmaker