Ancient practices key to fire control

REPORT: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE HAVE WORKABLE METHOD

As the rise in wildfires globally is set to continue at a faster rate.

Countries at risk of catastrophic wildfires should adopt ancient practices used by indigenous people, researchers said yesterday, after scores of deadly blazes engulfed parts of the northern hemisphere.

Wildfires have menaced villages and forests from Greece to the US this summer, killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands of people.

A report by the Prisma Foundation, an El Salvador-based research group, said fire services should collaborate with indigenous communities that have practised techniques for thousands of years to maintain their land and prevent large blazes.

“The best firefighting equipment in the world cannot stop the most devastating wildfires. An effective weapon to prevent uncontrolled wildfire is knowledge,” the report said.

Indigenous people, who manage nearly 900 million hectares of land worldwide, hold “highly sophisticated” knowledge of fire management, the report noted.

Indigenous groups around the world deliberately light small fires throughout the year, which reduces the amount of fuel, preventing wildfires from spreading rapidly. In the Brazilian savannah, the number of dry season fires decreased by 57% after fire services started collaborating with indigenous tribes, according to the Prisma Foundation.

“Small controlled burns can reduce the impact and threat of catastrophic wildfires,” lead researcher Andrew Davis said.

The US Forest Service formed a partnership with the Yurok tribe in northern California last year, after a fast-moving wildfire killed 43 people. The Yurok use controlled burns to protect settlements from big fires, and exposure to heat also makes crops more resistant to drought, said Frank Lake, a Native American ecologist. “Fire is medicine. This ancient lesson has an application to our modern conditions and situations.”

Fire now consumes more than half the annual budget of the US Forest Service and it could exceed 67% by 2025, according to a US Department of Agriculture report. In 1995, firefighting accounted for 16% of the service’s yearly budget, rising to 50% in 2015, said the report. The number of high-risk fire days will increase from 20 to 50% globally by 2050, according to a report in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution in 2017.