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WINNIPEG — The Honourable Harjit Sajjan, President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada, Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada announced the investment of $38.4 million over four years under the Government of Canada’s Fighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate Program – Equipment Fund to support Manitoba’s efforts to purchase wildland firefighting equipment to enhance provincial readiness and capacity to prepare for and respond to wildland fires. Funding announced today will help Manitoba purchase and upgrade firefighting equipment to increase wildland fire preparedness and response efforts, improve safety for communities and firefighters alike, and strengthen capacities and capabilities for resource exchange across Canada. In addition, the funding will support the purchase of additional training equipment.

Additional coverage from CBC News: Feds give Manitoba $19.2M to boost wildfire fighting capacity, province matches for $38.4M total

David Eby

Meta has agreed to amplify the B.C. government’s emergency evacuation information in exchange for a promise to better respond to harmful content that appears on its platforms including non-consensual images. Premier David Eby announced the deal on Wednesday. “Meta has agreed to establish a direct line of communication that will ensure response measures are closely co-ordinated as part of the government’s wildfire safety efforts, including the dissemination of reputable information available from official sources,” said Eby in a joint statement with representatives from five companies. “Meta, Snap, TikTok and X have offered to provide the province and additional crisis response organizations with advertising support to amplify awareness of safety resources throughout the wildfire season,” the joint statement said. The deal is for Meta to amplify “official information” from the government in emergency situations but it doesn’t address the fact that Meta continues to block Canadian news sites.

FORT NELSON, BC — Sonja Leverkus and her crew are based in Fort Nelson, B.C., which is currently at the centre of several big, fast-moving wildfires. This season, they had to switch gears from putting out zombie fires that burned through the winter to help battle the massive Parker Lake wildfire. That wildfire, which started when high winds blew a tree onto a power line, forced an evacuation order for about 4,700 people, including the community as well as Fort Nelson First Nation in B.C.’s northeast. …Federal scientists and politicians weighed in with their predictions last week for another hot, dry summer — the “perfect conditions for intense wildfires,” said Minister Jonathan Wilkinson. …Timothy Caulfield says wildfires are increasingly used as an “opportunity to push an anti-climate change”. He worries this season might be even worse when you factor in the growing role of artificial intelligence in spreading misinformation.

Doug Donaldson

Former B.C. forests minister Doug Donaldson says the province is on the right track as it responds to worsening wildfires, but the scale of the challenge is so great, it’s falling behind and needs to prioritize a “whole-of-society” approach. Donaldson says the place to start should be a dedicated provincial wildfire strategy that lays out responsibilities for each government ministry, while supporting the participation of local communities, civil society and the forest industry. Donaldson says the B.C. Wildfire Service has a strategy but it’s about a decade old. He says it needs to be updated and elevated into a cross-ministry strategy. …Donaldson is the co-author of a new report released Tuesday from a wildfire-focused research group based at the University of Victoria. …Donaldson says B.C. needs to look at “innovative economic models” to reduce forest fuels. That means involving the forest industry, he said. One example could be the reintroduction of broadcast burning.

Additional coverage from Black Press: U of Victoria report sets actions, priorities for wildfire management

The provincial government is set to enact a ban on open fires across coastal B.C. on Friday. BC Wildfire Service says, effective at 12 p.m. on May 17, most open burning activities will be prohibited everywhere from the Sunshine Coast, Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii until the end of October. The BC Wildfire Service says the ban will limit “Category 2” and “Category 3” open fires to help reduce wildfire risk and protect public safety. That means no larger fires, fireworks, or things like sky lanterns will be allowed. But it doesn’t apply to small campfires that are a half metre high by a half metre wide or smaller. The ban applies to all public and private land.

Rick Campbell

LYTTON, BC — After fuelling up their drip torches, BC Wildfire Service workers wearing red jackets begin to lay fire to an area of dry forest ground in Nlaka’pamux territory. …The project was designed to help build on the Nlaka’pamux community’s knowledge of fire and the ecosystem, as well as to improve their confidence in mitigating wildfires. Fifteen BCWS members trained six young contract firefighters from Boothroyd on how to conduct a prescribed burn. The community itself has an extensive and long history of conducting their own cultural burns. Their wildfire mitigation treatment consists of trimming trees, removing debris, piling it all together and burning. Elder and former band Chief Rick Campbell estimated that the practice of cultural and prescribed burns hasn’t been done in some areas throughout the nation for at least 500 years. “I think it’s long overdue,” he said.