There’s a new and more efficient way to get burn permits in the MD of Foothills. Foothills fire chief Jim Smith said the municipality’s new online burn permit system launched at the end of June makes the process faster and more manageable than in the past. “The process allows us to get the up-to-date burn permits as they’re entered into the computer,” said Smith. “If you were to enter a burn permit now, I would get an automatic update and I could either go check on your burn pile, I could approve your burn permit right away, or I could deny your burn permit right away.” He said approval of a permit still depends on factors like weather, location and size. The new permitting system also flags burns as either a Type 1 or a Type 2 fire, he said. Type 1 includes anything under 10-by-10-by-five feet, and Type 2 fires are anything larger, he said. “We didn’t define burning types as much as we could have before,” said Smith. Having the burn permits online also means no more lengthy paperwork through a fire guardian, he said. Now everything is done in real time, and the fire department can check the system to see the status of burn permits rather than having to call a volunteer fire guardian to find out whether a permit had been written for a particular individual, he said. “So it reduces the amount of paperwork and increases accessibility to the burn permits for us, so we can really take care of them if action is required,” said Smith. In addition to tracking whoever is burning in the municipality, the online system allows Foothills Fire to keep regional and provincial partners up-to-date, including Agriculture and Forestry, he said. The fire department can also update residents with open permits quickly should a fire ban come into play, he said. “It’s really quick, it’s really efficient, and it tracks everything for us,” said Smith. He said the permit takes three to five minutes to complete online. It can be found at www.mdfoothills.com.
