Generations of Indigenous fire stewards have long advocated for their knowledge to be respected as science, in B.C. and across Canada. And now, a national poll suggests Canadians agree Indigenous-led fire management is critical for the future. 

A new national poll, conducted by Pollara Strategic, says Canadians are starting to learn more about what Indigenous fire stewardship means, shifting public opinion in support of it.

According to the Indigenous Leadership Initiative data released in September, 49 per cent of Canadians had never heard of Indigenous fire stewardship before, but once it was described, 84 per cent said it is important for Canada.

The poll, which surveyed 2,250 Canadians in August, found that 76 per cent support First Nations cultural burning. For Sheri Lysons, that finding is long overdue. 

“It’s about time,” she told The Narwhal.

Lysons is Secwépemc from the Adams Lake Indian Band, located in B.C.’s Southern Interior, and has decades of experience fighting and stewarding fire. 

Lysons says that non-Indigenous people are changing their minds about practices such as cultural burns, “because they’ve seen the benefits of it.”

Reflecting on B.C. provincial legislation amendments made two years ago to support cultural burning, she says Indigenous firekeepers are doing “the work that needs to be done.”

“There’s so much misinformation out there,” she says. 

Lysons says education about cultural burns helps remove stigma, and with wildfires becoming more rampant, people are becoming more open to different preparedness methods.

As for the 82 per cent of Canadians in support of federal Indigenous fire stewardship funding, Lysons wants to see that number reach 100.

Indigenous firekeepers surprised by the statistics

Fire has been used by Indigenous people for countless generations as an ancestral land management and ceremonial practice. 

But today, a campfire is as close as some Indigenous people get to it, which is by government design. For more than a century, colonial policies disrupted and outlawed the practice of cultural burning, viewing fire as a threat and something to immediately suppress.

For those who come from families who managed to keep the tradition of cultural burns going, many wait year-round for the opportunity to hit the land with their torches.

While it is serious business, burning days are days when families and the community come together and spend time on the land. 

The jokes about which uncle or auntie are going to let the fire get away from them, the stories shared between generations and the smells and crackling sounds of the burn create memories which last a lifetime.

Tiffany Traverse is Secwépemc and has more than a decade of experience working in the fire industry. 

She’s held various positions with the BC Wildfire Service and currently has a board position with the Salish Firekeepers Society, a non-profit organization committed to promoting and revitalizing cultural burns in Interior B.C.

“When I was drilling down into the particulars about that poll, it was really nice to see that people are changing their opinions … on what cultural fire means and how important it is,” she says.  

“I was really pleasantly surprised to see that.”

She says education is key to those statistics, having started her career at a time when Indigenous fire stewardship practices were less supported.

“A percentage of people didn’t know about cultural fire and once they were educated on that, their opinion on it changed,” she says.

“I thought it was really refreshing to see, especially with all of the anti-Indigenous racism that we’ve been seeing.” 

It’s a sentiment shared by Nlaka’pamux firefighter George Campbell, who was also surprised by some of the statistics.

With 25 years of experience in the fire industry, Campbell remembers when Indigenous people had less engagement with the province.

He attributes a shift in British Columbian’s attitudes about Indigenous fire practices back to a 2018 report on the record-breaking floods and fires of the previous year.

“Ever since then, things have kind of shifted to more engagement in terms of cultural and prescribed fire,” he says.

Back in the day, firefighting was a low stress summer job for Campbell. But today, fires are more extreme and aggressive due to global warming. 

“It was identified in the early 2000s that our forest health was declining. We were getting good at suppressing fires and because of that, everything started to become overgrown and disease started to set in,” he says.

“We got away from our cultural and prescribed fire practices, which in my opinion resulted in an unhealthy forest.”

Reflecting on Canadians’ newly identified support for Indigenous fire stewardship practices outlined in the poll, Campbell says “it’s been a long time coming, to be honest.”

Canadians view wildfires as a national issue

Amy Cardinal Christianson is the Indigenous Leadership Initiative’s director of fire stewardship. She grew up in northern Alberta and has Métis ancestry.  

“We’ve had a bunch of severe fire years where there’s been a lot of people impacted. I think when that happens people usually start trying to look for solutions,” she says. 

The same national poll found 93 per cent of respondents identified wildfires as a national concern.

Christianson says wildfire smoke is a large factor in those statistics.

“Other hazards, for example earthquakes and flooding, stay very localized. Fire does not. Even if there’s a fire in one area, smoke can travel hundreds of kilometres away. It impacts a lot of people.”

“We found there’s been many Canadians impacted by smoke in the last five years,” she added. “I do think that’s really been the game changer. No one wants to spend their summers in smoke.” 

The impacts of wildfires fall disproportionately on Indigenous communities; in 2023, still the most severe wildfire season on record in Canada, 42 per cent of all communities evacuated were Indigenous. This past summer, First Nations communities in B.C. and Ontario were ravaged by wildfires.

The Canadian Senate released a report earlier this year titled: Canada on fire: The catastrophic and escalating effects of wildfires on lives and communities. 

It says wildfires are a national crisis, attributing the past three years as record-breaking wildfire seasons. According to the report, millions of Canadians are being exposed to wildfire smoke, for days, weeks and sometimes months at a time. 

“Indigenous communities — who have lived with fire for millennia — remain under-resourced and sidelined,” the report states. Many have endured repeat evacuations, loss of homes and long-term economic losses.”

“Despite their deep expertise in fire stewardship, Indigenous firefighters often encounter barriers to participating fully in wildfire management and urgent response. Strengthening Indigenous-led governance, training, equipment access and long-term funding is imperative,” it adds. 

In the Indigenous Leadership Initiative poll, Christianson was surprised more than twice as many Canadians say they would rather the federal government fund year-round Fire Guardians, compared to spending the same money on water bombers. In 2025, Kainai Nation partnered with Natural Resources Canada to launch the first federally funded Fire Guardians program in the country.

Christianson says Fire Guardian programs are a natural way forward, as they proactively mitigate risks such as built-up fuels and balance the ecological needs of wildfire-prone landscapes. 

Fire Guardian programs employ people in their nations year round to work on fire. Responding to fire, doing cultural burns, fire-smarting the community, emergency management and evacuation planning are some of the responsibilities of Fire Guardians. And after a fire has passed, they work with the land to recover. 

“If you get to the point where an air tanker is the only saviour of your community, you’ve really lost the plot on living in a good relationship with fire,” she says.

Another Indigenous Leadership Initiative study found the return on investment of Indigenous Guardian programs is even greater than previously found, with every dollar spent putting between nine and 12 dollars back into the economy. But Christianson said these programs need government support, not just public support — and not only in the summer, when wildfires are on everyone’s mind.

“As Indigenous people, we’ve always treated fire as a year-round thing. It’s not something you just fight against in the summer,” she says. 

She’s calling for long-term sustainable funding to implement these programs. So far, Kainai’s Fire Guardians program is still the only one of its kind in Canada, and the federal government’s future investments in Guardians programs remains uncertain. 

“It’s fine for the Canadian public to support these things, but what we really need to see is actual action in these areas.”

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