First Nations involvement is critical to planning a safe and successful wildfire evacuation

Wawa-news.com
July 21, 2021
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada

It is wildfire season, and First Nations are taking preparedness into their own hands. Their experiential knowledge of wildfires and the land they live on has provided indispensable input into the first book to set out a step-by-step guide on wildfire evacuation planning: “First Nations Wildfire Evacuations: A Guide for Communities and External Agencies” by Tara McGee and Amy Cardinal Christianson with the First Nations Wildfire Evacuation Partnership. The devastation of the 2011 wildfires, when 4,216 fires swept across Canada and consumed 2.6 million hectares of forest, severely affected thousands of First Nations residents. Thirty-five communities were forced to evacuate their lands, some with great difficulty. And this prompted Tara McGee, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, and Amy Cardinal Christianson, a Métis research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, to investigate wildfire evacuation planning for First Nations. 

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