Indigenous report into B.C.’s Elephant Hill wildfire calls for change in response, recovery
Global News
The Elephant Hill report calls for long-term funding to establish First Nations emergency management offices, attack crews and Indigenous firekeepers.
An Indigenous-led review of a massive wildfire that destroyed more than 100 homes in B.C.’s southern Interior four years ago has produced 30 calls to action to improve wildfire management and recovery practices.
The Elephant Hill wildfire scorched more than 1,900 square kilometres of land in the summer of 2017, directly affecting numerous First Nations.
The report released by the Secwepemcul’ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society asserts the fire could have been better managed if the province, including the wildfire service, had worked with Indigenous communities earlier and more actively throughout the response and recovery processes.
The society based in Kamloops, B.C., was founded by eight Secwepemc communities affected by the blaze, and the report chronicles their experiences and push toward a more collaborative approach with the B.C. government.
It asserts that poor communication, a lack of guidance from the province about immediate wildfire threats and evacuations, as well as widespread frustration that Secwepemc knowledge and abilities were ignored, have led to “deep mistrust of fire agencies and a strong feeling of ‘being on your own’.”
A joint leadership council was later struck to respond to the Elephant Hill fire, involving both Secwepemc and provincial officials.
The report states the majority of those interviewed during the review felt that the process succeeded in strengthening relationships. But it points to a disconnect between B.C.’s high-level commitment to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the way First Nations are supported and involved in decision-making in their territories.
Wildfires that are growing increasingly intense with climate change mean that advancing Indigenous leadership in wildfire management requires not only upholding Indigenous rights, it states, but also “confronting the underlying issues of unsustainable resource extraction and land and fire management that have created the conditions” for recurring, major fires.
