Simpcw Indigenous Initial Attack Crew
Just north of Kamloops, B.C., sits Chu Chua, home of the Simpcw First Nation and the first Indigenous Initial Attack (IIA) crew for the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS).
News & Insights
B.C. to bolster wildfire budgets by $517 million over three years
Good Fire: Revitalizing Cultural Burning
Summer wildfires twice as costly than 2017
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District spent more than $5.2 million – twice as much as in 2017 – dealing with this summer’s wildfires, which wiped out Lytton and Monte Lake and threatened other cities and towns across the region including Ashcroft, Spences Bridge and 70 Mile House.
Okanagan Indian Band planning to expand use of prescribed burns
How Indigenous ‘cultural burns’ can replenish our forests
Prescribed burns aren’t just for fire protection, Penticton Indian Band councillor says
No, we can’t fireproof towns and cities — but here’s how we can make them more resilient
Experts point to the wildland-urban interface as the area we need to think about
B.C. policy-makers urged to embrace controlled burns to reduce wildfire risk
Fire ecologists and some First Nations say prescribed and cultural burns will help reduce B.C.'s fuel load
B.C. wildfires: Fire experts tout Indigenous cultural burns to reduce risk
‘There was so much burning going on (once) and it resulted in all kinds of different vegetation types … And so that historic landscape was basically vaccinated against large-spread fire’