B.C. First Nations return to traditional practices to reduce wildfire risk

Heading into peak wildfire season, several First Nations across B.C. have already taken steps to reduce the risk to their communities.

As wildfire seasons seem to grow longer and more intense year after year, many B.C. First Nations are looking to the past for solutions to make their communities more fire resilient.

In the northwest corner of the province, the Cheslatta First Nation has come under threat multiple times in recent years.

“Almost half of Cheslatta’s territory has been burnt since 2010,” said Cheslatta forestry manager Logan Wilson.

“It’s already a rural community and there’s forest in-between each member’s houses. And so forestry is a component of assisting with the goal of reducing wildfire risk in the community.”

In addition to using forestry to reduce available fuel for wildfires, the Cheslatta Carrier Nation is also considering a fire mitigation tool First Nations in B.C. employed for thousands of years before colonization.

Cultural burns can be used to protect communities by reducing flammable forest fuels – or for other purposes, such as engineering the landscape for the benefit of specific plants or wildlife.

Many First Nations utilizing cultural burns are working in collaboration with researchers at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry, who received a USD$780,000 grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to study Indigenous practices of wildfire management and forest restoration.

“As a biophysical scientist, I’m just constantly in awe of the deep expertise and knowledge of the landscape and how that continues, especially as conditions are changing so rapidly,” said Kira Hoffman, a UBC research assistant working on the project.

Planning and preparation for the controlled burns can take months, or even years.

The burns are only conducted under ideal conditions, usually in the spring or fall, and often with assistance from the B.C. Wildfire Service.

“The development of a burn plan is really crucial and takes place well before fire is ever applied to the landscape,” said BCWS fire information officer Sarah Budd.

The BCWS said it participated in 48 prescribed burns in 2024, altering more than 3,400 hectares of land, an area more than eight times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park.

Twenty-three of those burns were conducted in collaboration with First Nations.

Remembering how fast a wildfire exploded near the community last summer, the Cheslatta Carrier Nation is making plans to fight fire with fire.

“One day it consumed about 10,000 hectares,” said Wilson. “So, it has a huge impact on the land and the community with fires when you’re not able to control them.”

Logan said the nation has not yet determined exactly where or when it will conduct a cultural burn.