A review of a 2017 wildfire in the Southern Interior led by several Indigenous communities has resulted in the communities creating 30 calls to action to help wildfire management and recovery in the province get better.
This report, which was released by a society in Kamloops that was founded by eight Secwepemc communities, was investigating the Elephant Hill fire in 2017 and concluded that this fire could have been taken care of better if both the province and the wildfire service had decided to work with the society sooner.
The report also mentioned that even though these communities were leading the ground response to the fire, the emergency management officials did not take their knowledge or abilities into consideration for coming up with other potential solutions to the fire.
The contents of the calls to action include the communities asking to meet with emergency management officials before every fire season, the First Nations getting their own emergency management offices, and First Nations liaison officers receiving stronger roles so that they can help create collaborations with local knowledge keepers.
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