 The Bemidji Fire Department has been selected for a national program to help reduce the future of wildfire risk and cost. Josh Peterson has more. Over the past five years, Bemidji and the surrounding areas have seen an increase in the amount of wildfire activity. That is one of the reasons why Bemidji has been selected as one of five new communities from across the country to receive technical assistance from community planning assistance for wildfires. A national program that helps reduce future wildfire risk and cost. We ran into an opportunity here to apply for a grant to provide us some assistance in assessing our community and ultimately developing some plans to minimize the impact of wildfires on the Bemidji area. Thanks to a collaborative effort by the Bemidji Fire Department and the Greater Bemidji Area Joint Planning Board, they were able to secure this opportunity. Our involvement will be community planning, helping plan for prevention of wildfires. Being selected for this honor is a very big deal and not just in the monetary value but in the amount of training and education that will be brought back to the Bemidji area. With this SIPA award, we're going to be able to really take that to the next level and get some technical assistance from national experts to help not only the Fire Department but the Greater Bemidji Joint Planning Board. These trainings and programs come at a crucial time for the Bemidji area. Implementation is expected to begin soon. Our first step is going to be a community-wide risk assessment to identify our areas and then we'll start working with some of the national experts on developing some of our plans. This program will now put Bemidji on a national scale with tools and resources to provide a greater and safer community. In Bemidji, I'm Josh Peterson, Lakeland News. She's Fire Chief and others will attend this SIPA training and conference beginning November 1st. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.