Fort McMurray forest fires

Fort McMurray Forest Fires - photo Darren RD, Creative Commons

How quickly things change. Back in 2008, City Planner Tracy Tester of Fort McMurray, Alberta, set up SafeGrowth training and program development for her Northern Alberta city. Tracey had been working on the idea for awhile and it finally came together.

A few years later all that hard work resulted in a city-wide Crime Reduction Plan approved by council in 2011. It was one of the first of its kind to adopt SafeGrowth.

A few years later student planner Jennica Collette, on assignment for Tracey, helped put a part of that plan in action and worked with a neighborhood to mobilize against crime.  Jennica is currently a SafeGrowth Advocate who has blogged here.

All that stellar work by such dedicated change agents is now going up in flames! I am not being literary, but rather literal.

The city of Fort McMurray, surrounded by a dry northern Canadian boreal forest and a raging forest fire, is currently burning. Over 80,000 people have been evacuated and much of the city has been destroyed by fire.

Thankfully news reports say everyone was evacuated in time and no one is seriously hurt - including Tracey and Jennica.  As Sue Ramsay described after the devastating Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand a few years ago, people are resilient. They will return and rebuild.

We send our condolences to Jennica, Tracey, their families (including some of mine who also fled the city) and all our Fort McMurray friends and family. May you find your way safely home to rebuild your city and your lives.

Tackling crime during an oil boom

Fort McMurray, northern Alberta - land of the northern lights

Last week was a very good week for SafeGrowth.

Fort McMurray, a city of over 100,000 is hub of the world-famous Alberta oil sands project. Established in 1870 as a Hudson's Bay trading post, today's Ft. Mac (officially the Municipality of Wood Buffalo) is ground zero for the world's biggest modern Gold Rush (...oil rush)!

As in times of old, Rushes lead to incredible population growth, crime and disorder. (Projected growth is over 230,000 in 15 years). Unlike times of old, Ft. Mac is taking steps to deal with it.

For the past year, myself and urban design specialist Megan Carr have been working with senior planner Tracey Tester and her talented crime prevention team to institute a new development plan. Our goal: create a neighborhood-based, collaborative plan based on crime prevention science. In other words, SafeGrowth. This past week the city council voted that crime prevention and reduction plan into life.

Even the media, it seems, has caught the excitement. News reports describe the plan.

Congratulations to Tracey and her team.

Mapping fear areas downtown. All part of SafeGrowth planning