Ottawa invests $335K towards Indigenous-led wildfire training in Saskatchewan
The council represents six First Nations in the Yorkton area, about 190 kilometres northeast of Regina. The Key, Cote, Keeseekoose, Ocean Man, Zagime, and Kahkawistahaw nations' territory spans roughly 52,000 hectares.
The funding is long overdue, Bonnie Austman, the council's emergency management coordinator, said in an interview on Tuesday.
"Our firefighters on First Nations don't get a whole lot of funding. With this, we'll be able to train 35 firefighters and incorporate cultural and traditional burning practices we've been missing for many, many years."
She said that unlike cities and municipalities, First Nations often don't receive financial support to fight wildfires unless they go through the lengthy process of applying for grants or funding proposals, as they with this initiative.
The council currently has 60 trained wildland firefighters. This new intiative — set to run over the next 18 months — will expand that force and strengthen local response.
The program, which was announced by the government on Monday, is designed to blend modern firefighting techniques with Indigenous cultural burning practices, meaning low, controlled fires that clear away brush and reduce fuel for larger wildfires.
This year's wildfire season in Saskatchewan has been one of the worst on record, at one point forcing 28 communities to evacuate, while scorching huge parts of the province's northern forest, the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) said. In addition, more homes and other structures have been lost due to fires this year than ever before.
There are still dozens wildfires burning in Saskatchewan with more work to be done on the front lines. However, for the first time in about three months, there are no evacuation orders in the province and all highway access is open.
There have been 467 wildfires in the province so far this year, compared with 488 during the same time period in 2024.
Austman said the training will not only enable the firefighters to bring the Indigenous practices to other First Nations, but will help the province overall.
Cultural burning has been used by Indigenous peoples for centuries to protect lands, encourage regrowth, and reduce fire risks, she said. The training will involve elders and youth working together — passing on knowledge that has been at risk of being lost.
"It's more of a rebirth process versus just letting it burn," she said. "The elders have so much knowledge into how to protect the lands, the agricultural, the wildlife, the berries – everything – by doing specific burning."
She said the funding will also go toward equipment, that is critically needed for firefighter safety.
"It's a huge struggle … Our first station firefighters are at the same risk as the municipal ones or [those in] the big cities," she said, noting that underfunding in the Yorkton area has been a concern.
Austman said the proposal took almost a year to be approved and she hopes it will lay the groundwork for more Indigenous-led training across Saskatchewan.
Mandy Gull-Masty, Minister of Indigenous Services said the Yorkton training program is an important step forward, noting they bring generations of expertise.
"First Nations are the only people who, with the combination of their traditional knowledge and access to specialized wildland firefighting training, will be able to secure and promote resilient communities across their territories," Gull-Masty said.
First Nations are more vulnerable to wildfires, as the threat of climate change increases, she said.
The funding announcement comes as Prairie provinces are on alert for more wildfire activity. Drier and hotter than normal temperatures are expected over the next two months.
With hotter and drier conditions forecast to continue into September, the "wildfire season's not slowing down," federal emergency management minister Eleanor Olszewski said. "We will continue to monitor the situation on a daily, virtually hourly basis."
Federal officials said the Yorkton investment is part of a broader plan to train 2,800 new wildland firefighters across Canada by 2028. That's up from an original target to train more than 1,000 community members.
The money is part of the government's $28-million Fighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate Program (FMWCC) Training Fund which aims to train new, community-based wildland firefighters by 2028, focusing on Indigenous communities, to increase local fire management capacities and capabilities across Canada.
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