As Canada concludes what will be its second-largest wildfire season in two decades, experts and front-line responders are urging policy-makers to enable First Nations participation in firefighting operations.
Indigenous knowledge and its keepers stand ready to play a central role in Canada’s wildfire response, Amy Cardinal Christianson, policy adviser with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, writes in a recent op-ed for The Globe and Mail.
“Many First Nations have local crews trained to fight fires,” Christianson writes, but they often encounter barriers to joining provincial response efforts due to safety regulations and protocols.
An expert in Indigenous fire stewardship and wildland firefighting, Christianson highlights the case of the Flanagan wildfire that emerged along a remote section of the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border in August. During this incident, the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) did not allow the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) to deploy its 300 trained Indigenous firefighters.
Citing Peter Ballantyne First Nation, Christianson writes that the SPSA refused to greenlight the Indigenous wildfire crew because the team lacked personal protective equipment. But in a statement issued at the time, Chief Peter Beatty said the crew had “the necessary gear, including fire hats and boots.”
As a result of this decision, the PAGC’s wildfire team was forced to watch the fire burn “unchecked for four weeks,” Christianson writes. Ultimately, Sandy Bay, a community of 1,800 people, had to be evacuated.
Both Indigenous and Western fire science emphasize that a rapid wildfire response is critical to minimizing dangerous burns. “Over the past four decades, displacement from wildfires has cost Canada about $4.6 billion,” Christianson writes. “And that’s just the price of moving people—not fighting fire.”
But there are signs of progress. When wildfires threatened the Little Red River Cree First Nation in Alberta this summer, local Indigenous fire crews were involved from the outset. In contrast, last summer, these crews had to advocate for their place on the fire line despite their local knowledge of back roads, safe river crossings, and the names of local equipment operators.
“Indigenous peoples have always been on the front lines because our communities are just so close to the boreal forest and other fire-prone areas,” Indigenous wildland firefighter Brady Highway said in an August, 2020 video, speaking for the Land Needs Guardians campaign. “When you look at Indigenous Guardian programs, it’s just one step further to provide them with the training and experience that they need to manage fire.”
Highway has fought almost 250 wildfires since he first helped his father save their Ballantyne First Nation village from a fire at age 15.
Christianson identifies Indigenous guardians as an “untapped resource,” noting that “more than 200 First Nations guardian programs already help manage lands and waters across the country,” some of them actively responding to fires.
For instance, when fire threatened the Fort Good Hope charter community in the Northwest Territories in June, K’asho Got’ıne Foundation guardians were ready to respond. But the programs need funding, Christianson says. “By expanding guardians programs and investing in new fire guardians programs, we can create a fleet of professionals ready to respond to fires and reduce risk.”
Those professionals could be accredited to deploy “good fire” cultural burns in spring and fall—a practice that helps reduce wildfire fuel ahead of increasingly hotter and drier summers.
They might also participate in “fighting fire with food,” like in one collaborative initiative between the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, researchers from the University of British Columbia’s Department of Forestry, and the Gitanyow Nation of northwestern British Columbia.
Led by the Gitanyow Nation, the project revives Indigenous practices to restore cultural fire regimes—some of which have been banned for over 100 years—and ecosystem-based land management, writes UBC Forestry. These practices included planting fire-resistant crops like fruit trees and berries around important cultural sites to protect them from wildfire. The use of low-grade fire alongside food propagation also helped enrich the soil where these crops were grown.
Today, these practices come with added benefits, including strengthening local food security, restoring and protecting biodiversity, and “buffering against a rapidly changing climate,” says UBC Forestry.
