Terrace's new FireSmart Officer Kim Service can be of assistance to locals who are looking to mitigate risk of fire to their homes;

"My role focuses on looking over the exterior of your home from right up to the edge of your building, up to 30 meters of the property. Lots of things you can look at. So are your gutters clean? Is your roof fire rated? Is your roof clean? Does your exterior decking... Is it made of wood or is it made of fireproof materials? Is there any dry vegetation collecting underneath your deck in the springtime? You might want to clean that out because that could be a place where embers couldcollect and ignite your structure. "

Service will check the outside of your home for risks. And the Terrace Fire Department is available by request to check the inside, said Terrace Fire Chief Chad Cooper;

“Our firefighters are able, opon request to come in and basically do a fire safety inspection. So they'll actually test your your smoke alarms. They'll look for any frayed extension cords or anything that is deemed electrical unsafe.”

Chief Cooper says it's been several months since the city has seen a structure fire;

“Our hats are off to all the residents there being due diligence and making sure their home is fire safe and and we continue to provide outreach around the community, give them prevention tips, and we also give them insight and what the actual cause of the fire is. So it seems to have calmed a lot of nerves down when we see a house burn down and everyone's on edge on what was the cause and how can we mitigate this from happening again.

So it's been well received. The firefighters love getting out into the community, providing that outreach and and even just having the children in the neighborhood come, check out the fire truck over there and instead of kind of reinforced with a positive attitude after a negative event.”

Cooper says all of these inspection services are free of charge;

“Yeah. Anytime anybody has any questions regarding the fire safety, they can give us a shout and we'll send the crew down there and give you a free home inspection.”