I have a love-hate relationship with forest fires. They are one of the most beautiful and powerful manifestations of our environment and the force of nature. They are a source of rejuvenation and new life — but, as we know, they can also cause immense harm and pain. 

While I write this, there are multiple out-of-control fires of over 1000 hectares burning within Treaty No. 9 Territory. They are among the dozens of fires burning across Canada right now, many out of control and many of similar size. 

In Canada, because of our federal division of powers, each province is responsible for managing their land and the fires on their land. The main exception to this is federally held land like national parks, which Canada is responsible for managing. All the provinces and Canada work together to manage fires every year and share resources and information. This is why you will often hear about firefighters from Ontario or Quebec being deployed in B.C. or Alberta, or the other way around depending on need. In fact, the provinces and Canada have certain fitness and training protocols as a baseline that must be met to ensure that a firefighter can be deployed out of province. I say all this because I will be mostly referring to Ontario in this blog, but Canada and other provinces aren’t off the hook because most of what I say here will apply to others as well.

When we talk about battling forest fires, we often talk about something called “values”. This refers to things or areas within the forest that are viewed as being valuable. This can be homes, businesses such as camps or lodges, infrastructure like electrical transmission lines, or industry assets such as mines or forestry areas. Values can be the determining factor in how a fire is managed. For decades in Ontario, only recently beginning to shift, the main strategy for fire management was fire suppression. This practice focused on preserving industry values, a large amount of which was forestry resources. This meant trying to keep forests from burning so they could be logged. 

Ontario and other provinces are starting to move away from this strategy, as they realize that fire is an important part of the landscape and that preventing all fires, just leads to bigger and more dangerous fires when they happen. We have also seen changes to forestry practices along with these changes. For example, for many years logging companies were able to simply leave “slash”, the waste products such as stumps, rejected logs, tree limbs and more, on the land. This led to what was commonly referred to as slash fires, where a fire started in a logging area would grow quickly and powerfully as it was fed by these abundant fuels. As the industry shifted to better management of these waste products, and fire management shifted to a more science-based focus the types of fires we saw changed. 

We are starting to see more fires allowed to burn on the landscape in natural ways, and as a part of cultural burns led by Indigenous peoples, with more of a focus on protection and management than on suppression. This isn’t always a perfect solution though. Fire management programs are required to look at the values in an area near a fire and make a decision of when to intervene and how. Sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they get it wrong. And sometimes the guidelines and policies aren’t what they should be. In Northern Ontario, the catalyst point to intervene on a fire approaching a First Nation community is different from the point when approaching a municipality. This is part of why in any season it is more likely that we’ll see First Nations evacuated before municipalities. The timing of when to intervene on a fire to prevent or limit an evacuation is important because often, the longer you wait and let the fire grow, the harder it will be to stop or gain control of the fire. When the catalyst to intervene in the North is further delayed than it would be in the South, First Nations face higher risks or evacuations and damage to their communities and territories. 

An evacuation is not easy for anyone, but many Indigenous communities already face high levels of mental health challenges, medical concerns such as diabetes or addiction, food insecurity, not to mention the logistic hurdles that come with evacuating a remote community. When an evacuation takes place from remote communities, individuals can be sent to areas across the country and province. For example, people from Northern Ontario can be sent to Cornwall, ON. From Pickle Lake, to Cornwall is over 2,000km or over 20 hours of driving. These evacuation destinations are decided based on municipalities with the facilities and willingness to accept evacuees and we are grateful for that, but it doesn’t make it easier. 

Some who work within fire management programs are taking steps to ensure that Indigenous people are heard within the fire management process. They work with Nations to identify cultural values that are to be protected alongside others identified by government and industry. They work to train First Nation members to help protect their communities from fires or to be hired to work within the fire management system. 

It’s hard to say any given fire season is the worst ever. This is because we don’t have good records dating back beyond the 1970s, nor do we have consistent metrics of what “worst” means. Is it area burned? Number of fires? Estimated cost of damage? Loss of wildlife habitat or unique ecosystems? These different metrics can all result in different assessments of any given fire season. But what we do know is that many of the contributing factors required to make a bad fire season, drought, lack of rain, or lots of lightning can be the results of changes to weather we are seeing from climate change. 

We also know that with an increase in industry, we will face an increase in fires. When human and industry presence increase in an area, we see more fires, whether it be from direct human causes like campfires or cigarettes, or machinery or railroads. Resource extraction throughout Northern Ontario will exacerbate the risks of fire to the region. 

This threat extends to one of the most crucial carbon sinks on the planet. The Breathing Lands, located primarily in the Hudson Bay Lowlands, are home to one of the world’s largest carbon stores — as globally significant as the Amazon Rainforest. Over millennia, these wetlands have accumulated peat, a type of soil made from decomposed plant matter that stories carbon incredibly efficiently. Peatlands can hold almost twice as much carbon as a forest does, with over 35 billion tonnes of carbon stored in the Breathing Lands alone. 

Canada has 25% of the world’s remaining peatlands, and disturbing them has the potential to release 1.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is a massive carbon threat poised to be unleashed into the warming climate by unchecked industrial development and out-of-control fires. 

Help protect the Breathing Lands and support the coalition of Nations who are saying no to unrestricted access to the Breathing Lands for industry. Donate to the campaign here.