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By Dylana Kneeshaw

SPARKS LAKE WILDFIRE

Skeetchestn leadership calling for change in wildfire fighting as residents return to charred landscape

Aug 4, 2021 | 5:14 PM

SKEETCHESTN — Skeetchestn evacuees were able to return home today (Aug. 4), as the threat from the still out-of-control Sparks Lake fire has reduced.

The wildfire was discovered in late June, and Kukpi7 Darrel Draney says help was slow to arrive at first. However, Indigenous firefighting and territory knowledge was key in protecting the area.

According to Draney, damage to the land was extensive and that will impact residents going forward, as about 80 per cent of the band is made up of hunters and gatherers. Spiritual areas were burned, and the fire also raged through other parts of the territory used to sustain the people who live there.

While many homes, community buildings, and hunting cabins were saved by Skeetchestn and BC Wildfire Service crews, residents are returning today to a burnt landscape.

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“We live in a tight valley. They’re coming back to a stove pipe of smoke still. They’re living in a stove pipe of smoke,” Draney explained, “And it’s charred, their territory is charred from one end of it to the other. That’s what they have to come back to.”

Draney recalls Skeetchestn members were first on scene to the fire when it was a manageable size, but they didn’t have the resources to put it out.

“Sparks Lake – the biggest fire in B.C – could have been put out with an initial attack crew right there.”

Crews with Skeetchestn Natural Resources have been working with the BC Wildfire Service on the fire response, and Draney reiterates that throughout the course of the operation, it has become a good working relationship. However out of this, Draney wants to see a province-wide change in how wildfires are fought.

This would mean using more local knowledge of the areas and having initial attack crews for every rural area band in B.C.

“And that initial attack crew could be First Nations, loggers, local ranchers, local settlers, trappers all working together – there wouldn’t be 300 fires in B.C., I can guarantee you that.”