As Canada deals with the same wildfire problems plaguing the western U.S. — fires of increasing intensity burning larger areas as the climate and forests change — Canadian governments are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on more and better firefighting equipment, increased personnel, fire-tracking satellites and improving community readiness. But some experts believe part of the solution to reducing catastrophic megafires involves practices that go back thousands of years, to the land’s first inhabitants: fighting fire with fire. The indigenous people of Canada for centuries intentionally set fires on the landscape for a variety of cultural needs. “They burned for medicinal plants, for food plants, to produce firewood, to produce teepee poles, other technological uses — warmth, cooking, everything else. It was how you survived on this landscape,” said Robert Gray, a wildland fire ecologist who runs his own company, RW Gray Consulting based in Chilliwack, British Columbia.