Breathing wildfire smoke may be uncommon for New Yorkers, but indigenous communities throughout North America are all too familiar with this environmental crisis.

Over the past few decades, wildfires have disproportionately affected Canada's First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. A recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research found that the proportion of Indigenous peoples affected by wildfires is almost three times that of the general population. As climate conditions worsen, the frequency and intensity of Indigenous peoples' exposure to wildfires is already going up.

In the first 6 months of this year alone, over 2,000 forest fires have been reported in Canada. As of June 7th, there are nearly 200 uncontrolled fires, and mobilization efforts are aimed at Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories. The Canadian government reports that 70 percent of the indigenous population is located in the boreal forests that span each province.

As history suggests, Increasing land ownership for these communities may also be the key to preventing a future of uncontrollable inferno.

Cultural burning — fighting fire with fire — has been practiced by Indigenous peoples throughout North America for thousands of years. This practice shaped the landscape, promoted biodiversity, and prevented large fires by destroying dry vegetation and overgrowth.

Tribal Chairman Ron W. Goode, of the North Fork Mono Tribe in California, explained the restorative effects of cultural burning an interview with the University of California:

“When everything's a mess and dry and needs brushing, needs clearing, then only the big trees are the ones that are sucking up water," he said. "They can reach down two meters, but cultural plants can only go down about a meter for water. Beyond that, they’re out of water. That’s when you begin to see parasites attack the bushes and the plants."

However, European settlers brought a different understanding of fire management to North America, and forced Indigenous peoples to abandon their burning practices. Countries could now be experiencing an unexpected consequence of this attempted cultural genocide.

Without Canada's cooperation, the potential for Indigenous-led prevention seems limited when reserves cover only 2.1 percent of the nation's forest territory. That's why the Indigenous and settler-descended co-authors of a 2022 publication in Facets have proposed a call-to-action for empowerment of Indigenous peoples in Canada. They noted that even if the federal government wants to learn from historic practices, it won't be able to inherit generations of territory-specific fire knowledge that Indigenous peoples possess.

As of now, Indigenous governance has yet to be fully recognized by Canada, and significant governmental oversight is still required for cultural burning. But these researchers believe fire management is in the best interest of the whole country:

"Increased Indigenous, social, and scientific communication of the benefits of Indigenous fire stewardship is needed to shift colonial perceptions of cultural burning for the benefit of all Canadians," they write.