Lean more on Indigenous knowledge in wildfire management, expert says

There are more evacuations in B.C. as the province’s record-setting wildfire season continues to eat through hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest.

The newest orders and alerts are all in the Cariboo and Bulkley-Nechako regions due to the Tsah Creek, Finger Lake, and Parrot Lookout fires, all considered out of control. A 12-kilometre stretch of Highway 27 is also closed south of Fort St. James due to the Tsah Creek fire, which is breached its control lines late Saturday.

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As the season continues, there’s a push from some experts to lean more heavily on Indigenous knowledge to help manage wildfires, pointing to controlled burns and other practices which were used for hundreds of years by many First Nation communities.

“It involves a lot of collaboration and a lot of negotiation between Indigenous communities, various governmental bodies and agencies,” said Miguel Sioui, an associate professor of geography and environmental sciences at Wilfred Laurier University, and a member of the Huron Wendat Nation.

‘Fire can be both destructive and also regenerative’

While strides have been made in B.C. in recent years, Sioui suggests more needs to be done to empower Indigenous communities to play a greater role in conserving and managing the land.

Forestry experts are now pushing provincial and federal governments to expand controlled burns to prevent the type of intense wildfires seen across the country this year, something Sioui says Indigenous communities have been doing for centuries.

“Controlled, smaller fires were used to promote the growth of specific plant species, also to maintain open landscapes, to mage wildlife populations, and to enhance overall ecosystem health,” he told CityNews. “Fire can be both destructive and also regenerative.”

Last year, B.C. announced almost $3 million in funding for local governments and First Nations to buy supplies and install equipment to maintain or improve their emergency operations centres. The federal government committed $8.4 million to support emergency preparedness and response in First Nations in B.C.

There are currently 26 evacuation orders and alerts issued by local governments and First Nations across the province, with 303 active fires, including the historically huge Donnie Creek Wildfire in the Peace region.

So far, more than one-million hectares have burned in B.C. this wildfire season.

-With files from The Canadian Press