File photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Dylana Milobar

PRESCRIBED BURNS

Skeetchestn band pushes for more Indigenous-led prescribed burns

May 24, 2019 | 4:32 PM

KAMLOOPS — A number of First Nations, including one in the Kamloops area, have joined a recent push to use prescribed burns as a wildfire prevention method.

Controlled burns are one of the recommendations made by the George Abbott and Chief Maureen Chapman report — which laid out what could be done better after back-to-back destructive fire seasons in B.C.

The Skeetchestn band, among others in the Interior, is working with the BC Wildfire Service to have more Indigenous-led burns throughout the province.

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With wildfire reduction, and forest management in mind, Skeechestn Chief Ron Ignace and First Nations Studies professor Marianne Ignace are pushing for more First Nations control over prescribed burns.

“So fire, if used properly, can be a healer,” Ron Ignace says. “Or just like water during floods, it can be very destructive, or it can grow your garden.”

Ignace says controlled burns can be used to get rid of fire-starting fuels in forests, while removing invasive plant species for natural ecosystems to flourish.

Recently, the Ignaces have been working with provincial and federal governments to have more Indigenous-led burns.

“Prescribed burns aren’t something that the Ministry of Forests invented recently,” explains Marianne Ignace. “It is a practice that Indigenous peoples here and elsewhere have practiced for thousands and thousands of years.”

According to the BC Wildfire Service’s fuels management superintendent, Rory Colwell, First Nations can carry out controlled burning under the Wildfire Act on reserve lands.

However, bands are asked to have a burn plan approved by the Wildfire Service before going ahead with a scheduled fire.

“With the wildfire regulation, approved burn plans are required for the use of resource management, open fire, within one kilometre of forest or grassland,” Colwell explains. “The approval ultimately does come from the BC Wildfire Service in the form of signature on the burn plan.”

Acknowledging the value traditional knowledge holds, Colwell says provincial wildfire experts have been collaborating with the First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS).

“We recognize that a more robust, prescribed fire program is going to be needed to meet the ecological and wildfire risk reduction needs in B.C,” he says. “This is just one of the actions being undertaken as part of the Abbott and Chapman report recommendations.”

Colwell says having a joint burn plan in place allows the service to help First Nations get controlled burns done quickly.

He adds having a set plan ahead of time can be useful as controlled burns are conducted depending on how favourable the weather is.

It also gives notice to other fire departments, so if calls come in reporting smoke or a fire, firefighters aren’t dispatched where they aren’t needed.

“The ultimate goal is for (First Nations) to be able to implement those projects where they feel comfortable doing so without our assistance.”

Progress on First Nations involved burns is being made, as Colwell says some of those planned fires have already been used in the Cariboo, and Kamloops Fire Centres.