Navigating wildfires: A rental store perspective

For Blake Menning of Drayton Valley, Alberta, keeping his rental store open during wildfire evacuations is a must. 

“We are deemed an essential service,” says Menning, vice president of All Choice Rentals. “And our people want to stay and help the community.” 

All Choice Rentals has 10 locations across Alberta and covers 85 per cent of the province within two hours of a phone call, says Menning. 

In 2023, Drayton Valley, along with the rest of Canada, experienced a record-breaking wildfire season. By the end of 2023, more than 6,000 fires had torched 15 million hectares (ha) of land, states the government of Canada. 

Drayton Valley evacuated around 7,000 residents within four days, according to Brazeau County. But Menning and his team stayed behind to offer equipment to emergency response teams, firefighters and the Red Cross. 

“We were able to help actively combat the wildfire in our community. Through that, we learned a lot of best practices to incorporate into our other locations,” he says. 

During the 2023 season, All Choice Rentals’ servers were inaccessible across the entire province due to the fires. Ever since then, All Choice Rentals has kept its servers on an online database to avoid another shutdown. 

Menning’s location includes a waste management division, portable toilets, hand-washing stations, temporary fencing, power generators and even firefighter suppression and water trailers. 

“We were consistently ready to move at a moment’s notice,” he says. “We worked with firefighting agencies to be proactive and what was beneficial to them.” 

Since then, Menning has made sure all 10 Alberta locations carry the necessary tools and resources in case of emergency. Additionally, he has made adjustments to operations to ensure everyone is safe, including working alone policies, GPS and dash cams in all vehicles and communication 24/7. 

“Our employees’ health and safety is our number one priority,” he says. “Our staff always want to help in whatever way they can because they grew up in these communities. But, we want to make sure it is done safely, because we want everybody to come home at the end of the day.” 

As of June, there have been 2,061 wildfires since the beginning of 2025, covering an area of 3.88 million ha, which is more than quadruple the 10-year average of 930,000 ha, according to Statistics Canada.  

According to the government of Canada, almost half of wildfires are caused by lightning, and fire ignites when enough oxygen is available. 

List of environmental factors:

• High and dry temperatures. 
• Low humidity, drying out vegetation. 
• Strong winds. 
• Lighting. 
• Human activity, such as campfires. 

The Fire Weather Index is a component of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System. It is a numeric rating of fire intensity. It is based on the ISI and the BUI, and is used as a general index of fire danger throughout the forested areas of Canada. (Natural Resources Canada)

Wildfires are becoming more and more common across Canada, warns Statistics Canada in a release, stating, “Given the changing climate, wildfire risk will likely continue to increase into the future; therefore, it is critical to understand the potential economic effects of wildfires.”

To Menning, rental stores should be prepared for wildfires, especially if they are located in the hot spot zones, as they can provide resources to emergency response teams. It is also important to have an updated emergency response plan in case a natural disaster does occur. 

Having shifting best practices is important, he says. 

It is essential to prepare an emergency response plan during the wildfire season, which spans from April to October, with July and August being the peak, states the government of Canada.