I made my way through charred forest paths outside Prince George last September, walking alongside fire ecologist Dr. Maya Kareem. The blackened trunks stretched for kilometers, remnants of what was British Columbia’s most devastating wildfire season on record. A light rain had finally come, too late for the 2.84 million hectares of forest consumed across the province in 2023.
“What most people don’t understand is that this isn’t just about climate change,” Dr. Kareem told me, brushing ash from her sleeve. “It’s about a century of fire suppression policies that have transformed our forests into tinderboxes.”
After the catastrophic wildfire seasons of 2021 and 2023, Canadians from coast to coast are asking the same urgent question: What can we do to prevent the next disaster? The answers, it turns out, are as complex as they are necessary.
When I visited the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc territory near Kamloops earlier this year, Elder Marie Baptiste showed me how her community has been reintroducing cultural burning practices that were banned by colonial policies over a century ago.
“Our people have always used fire as a tool,” Baptiste explained as we walked through a forest managed with traditional knowledge. “We burned underbrush in controlled ways to prevent the catastrophic fires you see today. The land remembers this relationship, even if government policies forgot.”
This traditional ecological knowledge is now gaining recognition from mainstream forest management agencies. Natural Resources Canada has begun incorporating Indigenous fire stewardship into its national wildfire strategy, acknowledging what many First Nations have known for generations.
The federal government allocated $256 million in Budget 2023 toward wildfire management, with $37.9 million specifically for Indigenous-led initiatives. But experts warn this funding, while welcome, falls far short of what’s needed to address the scale of Canada’s wildfire crisis.
Dr. Mike Flannigan, Canada Research Chair in Wildland Fire at Thompson Rivers University, estimates that effective fire prevention and management would require at least $1 billion annually across all jurisdictions.
“We’re spending billions cleaning up after disasters when we should be investing a fraction of that in prevention,” Flannigan told me during a video call from his smoke-filled office last August. “The math is simple, but the politics are complicated.”
Beyond funding, effective wildfire prevention requires a coordinated approach across multiple strategies. When I visited FireSmart demonstration homes in Fort McMurray—a community still carrying the emotional scars of the 2016 disaster—I saw firsthand how structural adaptations can make communities more resilient.
“We’re not just talking about removing trees near homes,” explained Darryl Connolly, a FireSmart coordinator who lost his own home in 2016. “It’s about building materials, community design, and even how we landscape our yards.”
FireSmart Canada recommendations include creating defensible space around structures, using fire-resistant building materials, and community-level planning that incorporates firebreaks and evacuation routes. These principles have been shown to significantly reduce structure losses during wildfires, according to research from the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction.
In Quebec’s Abitibi region, I witnessed another approach gaining traction: the strategic use of commercial logging to create firebreaks around vulnerable communities. While controversial among some environmental groups, forest ecologists increasingly support selective harvesting when it’s designed with fire prevention in mind.
“The key is intentionality,” explained Sophie Rousseau, a forestry engineer with Quebec’s Ministry of Forests. “We’re not talking about clear-cutting. We’re creating mosaic landscapes that can slow or stop fires before they reach populated areas.”
Climate change remains the backdrop against which all these strategies must be implemented. Environment and Climate Change Canada projections suggest that by mid-century, the annual area burned by wildfires in Canada could increase by 50 to 300 percent if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.
“We’re fighting a losing battle if we don’t address the root causes,” climate scientist Dr. Aisha Rahman told me. “Prevention strategies are essential, but they must be paired with aggressive emissions reductions.”
This creates a troubling paradox: as wildfires grow more severe due to climate change, they release more carbon into the atmosphere, further accelerating the very problem driving their intensity. In 2023 alone, Canada’s wildfires released an estimated 290 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent—roughly 40 percent of the country’s annual emissions from all other sources combined.
When I spoke with residents of Yellowknife following their citywide evacuation last summer, many expressed a new normal of anxiety as each fire season approaches.
“We used to worry about spring flooding,” said resident James Nasogaluak. “Now we spend winters wondering if we’ll have to flee our homes when summer comes.”
This psychological toll rarely makes headlines but represents a growing public health concern in fire-prone regions. Mental health supports are increasingly recognized as an essential component of comprehensive wildfire management strategies.
Preventing the next disaster will require unprecedented cooperation between Indigenous knowledge holders, forest scientists, community planners, and all levels of government. It will demand significant financial investments and a willingness to reconsider deeply entrenched approaches to forest management.
As I left the burned forest near Prince George, Dr. Kareem pointed to small green shoots already emerging from the blackened soil.
“Fire has always been part of these ecosystems,” she said. “The question isn’t whether we can eliminate fire—we can’t and shouldn’t try to. The question is whether we can restore our relationship with fire to one that’s sustainable and safe.”
For a country increasingly defined by its relationship with wildfire, finding that balance may be our most urgent challenge.
