Fighting fire with fire
How a B.C. Indigenous community is reintroducing traditional fire knowledge and practices to manage land vulnerable to wildfires
How a B.C. Indigenous community is reintroducing traditional fire knowledge and practices to manage land vulnerable to wildfires
At the suggestion of his best friend at the time, Matt Lees applied to work at the Cariboo Fire Centre when he was 18 and was hired on for the summer as a firefighter.
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).
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.
Experts point to the wildland-urban interface as the area we need to think about