Cultural burns: The wide-ranging impact of this Indigenous practice on Canada’s health

Wildfire is more than a fire emergency, it’s community health and cultural health emergency, explained presenters at a Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) webinar. Strengthening both can help lessen the burden wildfire events bring to Indigenous and other communities. First Nations and Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected in wildfire evacuations and emergencies in Canada, accounting for about 42% of the evacuation events in the past few years. It means serious impact of residents’ health, but better planning and communications for evacuations and recognizing cultural burning practices could help ease the strain.Cultural burningAlthough climate change is the main culprit for worsening wildfire seasons, the impact of colonial policies also play a role, said Janna Wale, a Gitxsan and Cree-Métis climate researcher. The policies disrupted Indigenous land management systems that included low-intensity controlled burns.“Fire was increasingly seen as something to suppress and control rather than something that can be used carefully as part of caring for the land,” she said. In the Gitxsan traditional territories in British Columbia, controlled burns, called cultural burning, would rejuvenate berry patches and limit the risk of catastrophic fire. Gitxsan Cultural Fire and Lax’Yip Firekeepers are a youth-led group trying to restore balance in fire and bring cultural fire back onto the landscape. They’ve carried out a number of cultural burns, guided by Elders and the B.C. wildfire service. There’s a number of positive outcomes to cultural burns, Wale explained. Cultural fires can help to support ecological health systems, food systems, cultural practices, knowledge transmission and relationship with the lands. Incorporating cultural burning into wildfire mitigation also contributes to wellness and wellbeing. “It restores our connection to the land, which is an enormous part of wellbeing, especially with eco-anxiety and eco-grief on the rise in our young people,” Wale said.Make space for Indigenous ways of knowing, Wale reminded attendees on the webinar. This means not just adding it to Western science, but recognizing that it is really is a living system with its own systems and responsibilities. Plans to ensure continuity of care in a wildfire eventCareful planning before wildfire season can mitigate the health and wellness impacts of a wildfire event on a community.“Evacuation is not just moving people, it’s moving patients,” said Justin Ersser, the emergency coordination Manager for Grand Council Treaty 3 territories. Treaty 3 spans 55,000 square miles in Northern Ontario and Manitoba and includes 28 First Nations. The population is about 25,000 people, the majority located in small communities of fewer than 500 people. An emergency soon stretches local health and support staff in small communities.Continuity of care planning has to be built into planning, “but the execution of that is very daunting.” It includes thinking about how to ensure continuity of medication and records access, medical equipment (e.g., oxygen), home care, and mental health and addiction supports. Host communities, including the host hospitals and pharmacies, may have little notice, and “they’re not just receiving evacuees, they’re receiving temporary community members.” Wildfire smoke is also a health emergency. “There is no safe level of exposure,” Dr. Samantha Green, CAPE board president, reminded attendees. Dr. Green is a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and had patients who needed air ventilation during a smoke event in the summer of 2026. The patients who are the most vulnerable to wildfire smoke are people with respiratory problems, children and the elderly.During a smoke emergency, “this brings difficult decisions, to keep people in the community with air filtration or evacuate them medically,” Ersser said. “Is the risk of travel and displacement greater than the smoke risk?”During a wildfire smoke event, there has to be public messaging, health check-ins and, most importantly, plans for high-risk residents before the sky is full of smoke. This includes having spaces in the community where there is indoor air filtration.Since 2021, Treaty 3 has had numerous evacuations due to wildfires. Some communities are going through wildfire emergencies repeatedly, including smoke events and evacuations. “That repeat cycle wears on people. It also wears on leadership, staff, health staff, the health system as a whole and families who are trying to keep life cycle moving during a crisis,” Ersser said.Any evacuation separates people away from their land medicines, family networks and cultural practices. Pre-planning can help ensure evacuees go to culturally safe host communities and families are kept together. Sometimes people from Treaty 3 territories need to be evacuated to Southern Ontario, which is not only a cultural shock, but the time it takes to travel there leaves them exhausted and is hard on mental wellbeing. Pre-planning for a wildfire emergency, and reviewing what worked and what didn’t during the recovery phase, can strengthen community health. It can then move from response to resilience.

Cultural burns: The wide-ranging impact of this Indigenous practice on Canada’s health

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