New Program Launches to Enhance Canada’s Prescribed Burning Efforts

A nationwide initiative aimed at enhancing wildfire management through prescribed burns has been launched by the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBC-Okanagan) in collaboration with the Weston Family Foundation. The program, known as the Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program, has received a significant boost with an $8 million donation from the foundation. This effort seeks to address the current scarcity of trained personnel in Canada who can effectively conduct prescribed burns, a method recognized as one of the most effective tools for reducing wildfire risks.

Despite their effectiveness, prescribed burns remain infrequent. For example, only two controlled fires were carried out in Kelowna in 2025, with the last one conducted on Knox Mountain in October. In West Kelowna, fire chief Jason Brolund highlighted the absence of prescribed burns in the area, noting, “For us here, we’ve never done one here in West Kelowna. It’s very complex. It takes a lot of work to prepare in advance, and the people who are doing it need to be highly trained and highly skilled.”

The complexity of planning and executing prescribed burns contributes to their limited use across the country. According to Dr. Mathieu Bourbonnais, assistant professor at UBC-O’s Faculty of Science and a former wildland firefighter involved in the program, the existing framework for resource sharing in wildfire suppression is not applicable to prescribed burns. “It’s kind of created this capacity gap,” he explained.

Training and Implementation Across Canada

The newly established program aims to bridge this gap by training individuals in the safe planning and execution of prescribed burns. It will also establish national training standards and provide hands-on field experience. A notable aspect of the initiative is its commitment to supporting Indigenous-led fire stewardship and cultural burning practices.

Bourbonnais emphasized the importance of tailored training due to the diverse practices across Canada’s provinces and territories. “Every province and territory and jurisdiction does things a little bit differently, and what that’s done is it’s limited opportunities for both people in wildfire agencies to get trained up,” he stated. “It’s also limited opportunities for broader groups that might be involved in this to get trained in prescribed fire.”

Effective prescribed burning requires careful assessment of various factors, including fuel types, topography, and weather conditions. Bourbonnais noted, “We’ll assess the fuels, the topography, what we’re going to see for weather, the type of fire behaviour that we want to kind of put on the ground. We also want to make sure that we’re communicating well with the public around, you know, hey, this is happening.”

Brolund underscored the numerous advantages of prescribed burns, describing them as cost-effective and impactful. He stated, “It’s something that had been practiced for thousands of years, but we lost it. If we’re going to make a dent on a scale that is really measurable, we need to re-learn those skills and be able to apply fire to the ground over a large area to really have an impact on these fires that we face.”

The initiative will establish five regional hubs—Western, Northern, Central, Eastern, and Atlantic Canada—to customize training based on local ecosystems and governance structures. By fostering a more skilled workforce, the program aspires to enhance Canada’s resilience to increasingly frequent wildfires.