Wildfire Management in the Province of Alberta, Canada: Then, Now and the Future

Pre-Contact

Alberta is a province prone to fire from North to South and East to West. In the far North, boreal swamps and peatlands packed with black spruce rely upon fires for their natural regeneration cycles and ecological self-regulation. In the south and east, wind swept prairie grasslands carry fast flashy fires over great lengths, fanned by dry winds off the Rockies to the west. In the west, the dry eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains combine the boreal forests and strong, dry, western winds to create fires on steep slopes that can rage for the better half of a year. Alberta is predisposed to quick, flashy fires in its grasslands and eastern slopes in the spring and fall as the natural cycles of freeze and thaw create dry dead grass powder kegs. In the peak of the summer heat when the sun seldom sets in the north, forests are dry and primed to burn and renew.^[1]

Since time immemorial the Indigenous peoples of Alberta have employed fire management to mold and harvest their landscapes. “The evidence is clear: the indigenes [sic] used fire to make their environment more habitable…They sought to replace fires of chance with fires of choice.”^[2]. Human created fires were used to herd buffalo and wildlife, renew berry growth in the slopes and develop land for easier passage and agriculture among hundreds of other uses^[3]. By modern standards the Indigenous peoples of Alberta were rather adept at wildfire management and using wildfire as a tool. however fires were still able to escape their control and in turn create adverse effects with their destruction.

Colonial Period

In the advent of European contact, wildfire management in Alberta greatly changed for the first time since Indigenous peoples set out upon the land. In the beginning, trappers and explorers driven by fur trade and exploration set out west to find the edge of the ‘New World’. These early explorers were more observatory than participatory in their land management. Over the next hundred or so years, the value of Alberta’s fertile prairies and vast forests came to draw the attention of eastern settlers and officials. The exploitation of buffalo had also found its way to Alberta. As buffalo herders descended upon the last of the great herds that once roamed the prairies, local Indigenous peoples would set fires to herd the buffalo from extinction and to set a buffer between the herds and unbridled massacres.^[2]

As the buffalo began to disappear and sodhouse settlements and log cabins began to pop up across what is now Alberta, Dominion was not far behind. With the new control and claim to Alberta, came changes to the landscape. Europeans viewed fire as a menace on the landscape that threatened settlement and the resources it aimed to extract. Indigenous knowledge was increasingly viewed as inferior to European land management and science. In the Dominion Lands Act of 1872 wildfire was recognized as a threat to Canada and its colonial future^[2].  The Geographical Survey of Canada led by Robert Bell documented and dismissed Indigenous management of fire and its uses. Bell would even go as far as bribing and suggesting continued bribes to Indigenous peoples in Alberta to curtail their ancient burning practices. The first steps in the outlawing of Indigenous fire management in Alberta had been taken.^[2]

19th Century

Traditional fire management knowledge continued to be marginalized over the course of the 19^th century. The development of the Alberta Forest Service implemented fire rangers and small wildfire forces to detect and battle blazes throughout forest protection zones in Alberta. The Indigenous peoples of Alberta were subjected to cultural genocide via residential schools and the ‘60s Swoop. Not only was the traditional fire management knowledge of Indigenous peoples under threat, but their traditions and identity altogether were being systematically ripped from them and destroyed by the Canadian government and Christian missionaries. The horrors of the Canadian residential school system not only attempted to strip the Indigenous peoples of their language, culture and traditions, it left scars that are still visible and widely felt in the Indigenous community.^[4]

In addition, the damage caused by the residential schools, the physical marginalization and containment of Indigenous peoples on reservations and settlements further detached them from their traditional lands and land management techniques. Treaties 6,7 and 8 divided up the traditional territories of the Plains and Woodland Cree, Assiniboine, Blackfoot and other First Nations peoples throughout Alberta and the prairie provinces. Prior to these treaties the concept of land ownership did not exist amongst Indigenous peoples of Canada, the concept of owning that which belonged to all was completely foreign and nonsensical to those that signed these treaties. Indigenous peoples were relocated to settlements and reservations where they were entitled to live, however the land ultimately belonged to the federal government. The reservation lands were often not within the traditional territory of the peoples who occupied them, further more these small tracts of land did not see much controlled fire as agriculture was economically and institutionally pressed upon these communities.

Most of the lands that were obtained via treaty 6 would provide land for the expansion of Canada's rail network. With the rail network and its construction and functions came more accidental and human caused fires to the landscape. The Alberta Forest Service prioritized the protection of the settlements and infrastructure affected by these increased railroad fires. Wildfire was no longer a natural occurrence or land management tool, but a menace to be fought and stifled whenever possible.

Modern Times

Over the course of the 19^th century Indigenous marginalization continued as did the increase in fire intensity and frequency.^[1] Albertan wildfire management efforts continued to grow just as the fires did. Helicopters, waterbombers and specialized Helitack wildfire crews were developed to battle and suppress the blazes. In 1983 Alberta implemented the Rappel wildfire crew in order to access the province's most remote fires in order to stop them before they grew. The wildfire management mandate was to contain each fire and stop its spread before 10am or peak burning period the next day. This aggressive fire management plan saw a widespread removal of fire from the landscape across the province. Prescribed burns and fuel load management (i.e. FireSmart and forest thinning programs) were employed to manage problem areas close to urban interface.^[5]