A deeper diveis an award-winning visual journalist based in Vancouver. For this week’s deeper dive, he talks about photographing the prescribed burn at ?aq’am First Nation.
In early May, I watched through my camera’s viewfinder as tree after tree caught light on the ?aq’am First Nation’s reserve lands outside Cranbrook, B.C. It was a 1,200 hectare controlled fire in partnership with the City of Cranbrook and supported by the B.C. Wildfire Service. In many ways, the scene felt evocative of our broader relationship with forest fires. Since colonization, the prevailing beliefs about wildfire painted it as a horrifying monster, something to be corralled, controlled and ultimately vanquished.
B.C. Wildfire Service firefighter Maria Milner uses a drip torch during a prescribed wildfire burn to reduce dangerous fuel loads at the airport in Cranbrook, B.C. on April 26, 2023, Indigenous communities like ?aq’am are leading efforts to bring healthy fire back to landscapes that — in the age of climate change — desperately need it.