Indigenous fire stewards aim to bring “good fire” back through cultural, low-intensity burns

The Story

In B.C.’s Nicola River valley, fire practitioner Leona Antoine says she and her family are carrying forward a traditional approach she first learned from her grandfather—setting low, patchy burns that clear dead brush and help sunlight reach the ground.

Antoine, who is Syilx and Nlaka’pamux and lives in Merritt, described how the fires were traditionally associated with healthier regrowth, including fresh green grass and plants used as traditional medicines. She says her grandfather came of age during a period when Indigenous communities were largely prohibited from using the practice.

Antoine, a former forest firefighter and forestry consultant, says today’s urgency is shaped by decades of aggressive forest fire suppression and extreme weather linked to climate change. She points to the increasingly flammable southern interior, where her field sits near a highway and is crossed by the Trans Mountain pipeline, as well as to recent catastrophic wildfire seasons in B.C.

“We keep reacting to these catastrophic fires,” Antoine said. “How can we restore our practices and our teachings and our culture into the future, where we’re actually restoring our ecosystems, where it’s sustainable?”

Antoine is chair of the Salish Firekeepers Society, a non-profit that advocates for Indigenous cultural burns and land stewardship. She says her work is part of a wider movement among Indigenous fire practitioners and researchers to use strategic, controlled burns outside peak wildfire season.

Those low-intensity burns, practitioners say, can protect communities by reducing fuel for future out-of-control fires and can support healthier landscapes. “Mother Nature is already making up our minds for us,” Antoine said.

Momentum for cultural burning has also been reflected in policy and research. The evidence provided cites a Senate report on Canada’s “escalating wildfire crisis” that highlighted cultural burning and recommended the federal government boost financial and logistical support for Indigenous-led fire management. It also notes that Ontario recently relaxed legislation so Indigenous communities no longer have to apply for a fire permit for cultural burns if the provincial ministry is notified in advance.

The evidence also points to research from outside Canada linking Indigenous-led controlled burning with changes in fire outcomes, including studies cited as finding reduced bush fire extent and severity, and reductions in fire intensity and smoke emissions. It further notes support for the practice from several provincial wildfire agencies, including B.C.’s.

Still, the evidence describes cultural burning as underused in Canada compared with the United States. It states that Canadian wildfire agencies set prescribed fires on about 110 square kilometres this past year, mostly in B.C., and that the total was the highest annual amount of the past decade. It also says Canada directs more resources to fighting wildfires than preventing them.

The evidence attributes some of Canada’s hesitancy to a risk-averse culture driven by liability concerns and past incidents in which prescribed fires spread beyond intended boundaries. “A fire put out is just a fire deferred,” said Amy Cardinal Christianson, described as Cree-Metis from northern Alberta and a former research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service who now advocates for Indigenous fire stewardship.

Christianson said cultural burning involves more than a firefighting tool, connecting it to community decision-making and land stewardship responsibilities. “Those are the people that can make those decisions about where the fires need to happen that will be most impactful for their communities,” she said. “It’s so much more than just a tool because it’s so connected to who we are as people and that important relationship and responsibility we have just for land stewardship.”

The evidence describes a challenge to scale cultural burns, including capacity limits and the loss of elders’ knowledge. Daylan Chookomolin, now a fire management co-ordinator for a community in northern Ontario described as south of Hudson Bay, said he became involved in wildfire work in 2018 after noticing smoke rising above a nearby Weenusk First Nation youth program.

Chookomolin described growing up with spring burns around lawns before conditions “greened up,” saying he later realized the practice carried deeper cultural meaning. He trains and manages a volunteer crew of 15, and he says capacity is stretched because crews focus on fires around their own community while also helping elsewhere.

“We have capacity issues. We don’t have a very large staff, and our spring seasons are usually busy and then we only have a certain window when we can do these burns,” Chookomolin said in an August interview referenced in the evidence.

The evidence also notes that communities face additional complications as climate change warms northern regions, lengthens fire seasons, and dries peatlands—raising concerns about how to safely carry out burns in altered landscapes.

According to the evidence, Christianson argues barriers faced by Indigenous communities include that cultural burning remains largely barred in most of Canada outside Ontario, and that approving burn plans requires time and resources many communities do not have. “We feel there’s a social justice issue as well,” she said.

The evidence frames fire as integral to Canadian ecosystems, citing examples including nutrient recycling from charred wood, habitat created by hollowed logs, and jack pine cones that require fire’s heat to release seeds. It also states the evidence includes archeological findings near Sturgeon Lake First Nation indicating controlled burning dates back 11,000 years.

In the Nicola Valley, Antoine said change is visible through increased collaboration on land management, including an Indigenous-led program to plant native species along the watershed. She also said B.C. relaxed fire legislation in 2023 and that the wildfire service has partnered with several First Nations on cultural burns.

Antoine said her 16-year-old daughter took part in a burn last spring, and she described the moment as pride and continuity. “I think our ancestors are smiling and I think that, you know, we’re starting to take our rightful place, and it feels good as a steward to be able to apply fire and be able to pass it on to the next generation,” she said. “I think if we heal the land, the land will heal us.”