How Indigenous techniques saved a community from wildfire

“When you think about how wildfire seasons are playing out, if we invested more into the proactive, then we would need less of that reactive wildfire response,” said Kira Hoffman, a wildfire researcher at the University of British Columbia. “We’re not going to see probably the effects of a lot of this mitigation and treatment for 10 or 20 years. But that’s when we’re really going to need it.”

Wildfires are an essential component of the natural cycle of forests, but in recent years, more of them have grown so big that containment is nearly impossible. Fire prevention zones — created in the offseason — can help slow approaching blazes so that people can escape, and can also enable firefighters to gain control over some areas.