MLAs highlight use of traditional knowledge in N.W.T. firefighting efforts

While it's been done in the past, the N.W.T. won't be relying on staff in towers to detect fires on the landscape. 

That's according to Mike Gravel, the director of the N.W.T. government's forest management division. 

His comment was in response to Dehcho MLA Sheryl Yakeleya during a committee meeting Monday to discuss the Department of Environment and Climate Change's response to the 2023 wildfire season. 

Yakeleya said she'd like to see a return to the use of towers as a detection method. 

Gravel, however, said there's been an industry-wide shift away from the practice because of safety concerns.

"Fortunately in the Northwest Territories, we have not had serious accidents or fatalities," he said. "Not us, but in this industry, we've had tower people that were killed by bears at their sites. We've had people fall while climbing up the ladder and hanging there suspended in air. It's also with risk." 

He explained that wildfire detection is moving toward the use of technology, which is available "24/7." 

"Having people in remote sites is probably not a direction we're going to go towards that I can see," he said. "The way we hope to go with the technology is, every single town has cameras around them providing views of any potential fire." 

Traditional knowledge plays 'big role': minister 

The question was part of a larger conversation around the use of Indigenous traditional knowledge in fighting fires and forest management. 

"Traditional knowledge plays a big role in how we fight fire in the Northwest Territories," said Jay Macdonald, minister of Environment and Climate Change. "Over the last number of years … it was noticeable that you could see we were starting to lose that traditional knowledge." 

That realization, he said, was especially apparent during the 2023 season when he said there were fewer experienced firefighters in the territory to rely upon. 

The after-action review report also highlighted how some staff served in roles for which they had insufficient training. 

Now, he said the department is working on additional training and knowledge-transfer for staff "to ensure that remains a strong part of the program." 

Monfwi MLA Jane Weyallon Armstrong said Indigenous communities are willing to help fight fires.

"Indigenous people love their land," she said. "If they have the resources, they will take preventative measures to put it out as soon as it started."

Gravel said the department is also considering mitigation measures that draw upon traditional knowledge: controlled (or prescribed) burns around communities. 

"There's opportunities to reintroduce cultural burning," he said. "Indigenous people long used fire as a tool on the landscape, prescribed fires in and around communities to remove the risk and to have a fire in a controlled state rather than that uncontrolled state." 

He added that some communities have reached out to the department interested in doing those controlled burns. 

"Carrying out prescribed fire around a community obviously requires a lot of planning, a lot of communication, a lot of engagement, a lot of education so that people understand what it is we're doing and why and what the end results will benefit the majority of people." 

For now, he said it's part of the department's long-term planning. 

Yakeleya said controlled burns used to happen near her home community of Fort Providence, N.W.T. 

"Growing up, my dad was a firefighter and he used to burn the grass around the community and it was all controlled because the firefighters were there," she said. "They didn't have the big machines that we have today. They had little pumps with a water bag behind them and they were controlling the burn."

One of the review's 25 recommendations also called on the territorial government to consult Indigenous governments to update its "values-at-risk" list with culturally-significant sites.