The G7 Tackled Wildfires. Was It a Milestone?

As world leaders gathered for the G7 summit last week in Kananaskis, Alberta, more than 50 wildfires burned across the province.

The leaders’ joint statements included the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter, the first G7 document explicitly dedicated to co-ordinating international action on wildfire prevention, mitigation, response and recovery.

It was agreed to by all the G7 leaders, as well as the heads of Australia, India, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa, non-G7 governments also invited to join this year’s summit.

Mathieu Bourbonnais, an assistant professor in environmental science at the University of British Columbia Okanagan and UBC research chair in wildfire management, said he is trying to be positive about the statement’s approach.

“It’s really positive that the G7 — our prime minister, the leaders of other countries — are recognizing that wildfire is an issue,” he told The Tyee.

“I think now it’s about whether we see action to deal with these points, because there’s a lot of points in the charter.”

The charter outlines initiatives ranging from geospatial mapping and early warning systems to the adoption of wildfire-resilient infrastructure.

“The other thing is, we’re doing a lot of this already,” said Bourbonnais, who is also co-director of the UBC Centre for Wildfire Coexistence. “I think it might not entirely reflect all the work that’s already going on.”

Bourbonnais’s team at UBC is currently developing a system that uses cameras on cell towers and other infrastructure to improve wildfire reporting.

Working with telecom and satellite providers, the camera network will generate data that will be fed through an AI algorithm to detect smoke. It will also broadcast live feeds that are accessible online for local residents. The goal is to improve detection in underserved areas like B.C.’s north, and promote public safety in all wildfire-affected areas. A similar system, called Alert, already exists in California.

Bourbonnais said that while continuing to pursue scientific breakthroughs in wildfire prevention and response is important, science moves slowly.

Local and Indigenous knowledge sharing can help speed a process where rapid response is essential.

William Nikolakis is an assistant professor in the department of forest resources management at UBC and executive director of Gathering Voices Society, a Vancouver-based non-profit that promotes Indigenous-led solutions to environmental issues.

The group has facilitated fire stewardship programs in partnership with the Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in First Nations in central B.C. since 2018, organizing cultural burns twice a year.

Cultural burning is a traditional Indigenous land management practice that uses controlled fire-setting to reduce the frequency and severity of wildfires. It’s another initiative featured prominently in the Kananaskis charter. While Indigenous groups have been practising and advocating for cultural burning for centuries, Nikolakis still sees its mention in the Kananaskis charter as a major success.

“I think that’s a huge step forward to make a statement around cultural fire and cultural burning at the international level,” he said in an interview with The Tyee. “I think that a unified international approach on supporting cultural burning is going to be critical to really give it the support that’s needed for it to flourish.”

Nikolakis is satisfied with the charter as a jumping-off point. But he will expect to see the commitments articulated in the document followed up with meaningful action, such as setting up a liability fund for cultural burn practitioners.

Brian Wiens, a research manager with Canada Wildfire at the University of Alberta, is likewise encouraged by the release of the charter. But he agrees it contains calls for measures that are already in place.

“I think it’s quite remarkable that it’s the first time that a document like this has arisen from any sort of multinational group. So that is quite encouraging. At the same time, a lot of the content is reflecting what’s already in place in a lot of bilateral agreements. It’s just the first time it shows up at a multilateral agreement,” he said.

Wiens outlined existing bilateral co-operation between Canada and over 20 countries, on topics ranging from fire danger ratings to firefighter exchange.

And Bourbonnais pointed out that other initiatives found in the charter — sharing equipment and safety standards with international partners — are also already in effect.

“It’s great to have these international agreements when we need them. We’ve had one in Canada between the United States, Australia and New Zealand, for a long time. We needed it in 2023, and it worked,” agreed Robert Gray, a wildland fire ecologist, in an interview with The Tyee.

“But we have got to shift the funding formula and our actions to getting out ahead of these problems and not just responding to them.”

For Gray, that means shifting the focus from wildfire response to wildfire prevention and mitigation. The Kananaskis Wildfire Charter, he said, is far too focused on the former.

Prevention measures would include practices like forest thinning, proscribed and cultural burning and shifting vegetation from more flammable species to less flammable species.

“If we’re looking at tsunamis and earthquakes and tornadoes and cyclones and things like that — there’s no mitigation part to that. You’re always going to be responding,” said Gray.

“Fire is that one unique disturbance where we really do have some level of control over it.”

Why is prevention sidelined in the Kananaskis charter? Gray said it’s simple: money.

“Here’s the irony,” said Gray. “Here in B.C. since 2017 we’ve spent almost $3.5 billion on suppression.”

According to Gray, that figure excludes insurance claims, non-insured homes, infrastructure, watershed damage and human health. He said the total cost of fire ranges from six to 30 times the cost of suppression.

“So, when someone says to me, ‘It’s too expensive to do the mitigation,’ well, it’s often more expensive not to do the mitigation.”

“We just need to pay for both at the same time, for a while,” added Bourbonnais. “We need to put as much resources and effort into mitigation as we put into suppression, and hopefully over time, that ledger starts to go the other way, where we see we’re not spending as much on suppression because all this mitigation work that we’re doing is starting to pay off.”

Another problem with the charter, according to Bourbonnais, is it’s too international in scope.

“What we might do in the Okanagan in British Columbia isn't necessarily what we'll do in northeastern British Columbia. It won't be the same thing that we'll do in Saskatchewan,” said Bourbonnais.

“It's the knowledge holders that are in place, that are caring for their country, that have real skin in the game about the health of their land, that are going to make the best decisions and take the best actions for their land base... and keep that healthier over the long term,” added Nikolakis.

But Wiens believes there are still many areas of policy standardization that will benefit from being approached at the international level.

“It’s enormously resource intensive to set the standards, find out what people have and find out how to share it,” he said.

He is hopeful the commitments in the charter will help streamline knowledge sharing across borders.

Perhaps the most notable gap in the Kananaskis charter is any mention of climate change. While the omission is likely a calculation on behalf of the G7 leaders to obtain the endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump, Wiens still thinks it undermines the charter.

“We know that’s the most controversial within the G7. But that is certainly the one that is really significant, because it’s a foundational factor in a lot of wildfire issues.”

Gray added that if we fail to address climate change, we are once again favouring response over mitigation.

“We’re on a trajectory now where we’re going to be seeing worse and worse fire seasons. If all we’re doing is responding to them, then it’s basically the fire paradigm: the more we suppress them, the worse they get,” he said.

Nikolakis agrees that climate change is to blame for the hotter and drier climates contributing to unprecedented wildfire seasons. But he thinks that if leaving contentious issues off the Kananaskis charter will help to produce long-term, co-ordinated commitments to support land stewardship, it’s a trade-off he’s willing to make.

While he agrees that the omission of climate change is a big oversight, Bourbonnais doesn’t want to encourage the belief that the climate crisis must be solved before any meaningful action can be taken to address wildfires.

“With fire, climate's a big part of it, but it's also about what's out there that's available to burn. How we manage our landscapes, how we manage our forests and our fuels, those are things that we do every single day through forestry and parks and protected areas and conservation decisions. We actively manage that part of it.”

Climate change can seem an overwhelming challenge, Bourbonnais said.

“It seems almost hopeless. But with fire, there is something we can do.”