These Halifax-area communities are getting ready for the next wildfire. Should yours be next?

When Paul Meade moved into his house on a picturesque island overlooking Nova Scotia's St. Margaret's Bay three years ago, he could barely spot its brown wood siding from the road through the property's dense bands of trees.

He started to cut it back, at first for esthetic reasons.

But after a wildfire broke out in the nearby community of Upper Tantallon in May 2023  — destroying 151 homes in its path  — Meade soon realized his proactive tree-clearing had another purpose: fire prevention.

At first, he felt some relief that wildfire wasn't on his own doorstep — until another fire was.

"We thought we were OK until a brush fire broke out on the island," said Meade, 70, in the driveway of his home on Sheep's Head Island.

"If it hadn't been for the diversion of an air crew to come over here before the fire trucks got here and scoop water out of the ocean and put the fire out, the whole island could have gone up.

"That was a wake up call — a serious wake-up call."

Meade and the 18 other households on the island — referred to by locals as Sheep's Head Island but recognized as The Head on maps — realized they were vulnerable, and wanted to do something about it.

That's when they reached out to Kara McCurdy, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency's wildfire mitigation manager, for help on what to do next.

McCurdy has vowed to assess every community in Halifax Regional Municipality for its risk of wildfire and other hazards like floods, educating residents on how they can protect their homes and in turn their neighbours, and identifying issues in the wider community that may need addressing.

With more than 200 communities in the region spanning from Hubbards to Ecum Secum, it's an enormous task — one she's carrying out with the help of multiple stakeholders including city planners, environmental officials and an expert at Dalhousie University.

But she's up to the challenge.

"It's hard, because how do you prioritize which community you start with?" said McCurdy.

"We're looking at creating a map that kind of gives us an idea of which communities have the most fuels within the homes in that community and then prioritizing those communities as where we go to first."