B.C. is burning: How community and faith-led efforts aid wildfire mitigation in the province

President of the Gurdwara Dukh Nivaran Sahib, Narinder Singh Walia, believes in helping everyone. 

He moved to Canada in 1992. After landing at Calgary International Airport, Walia worked as a granthi, a principal religious official in Sikhism, in Edmonton for a year and a half. In 1994, he moved to Surrey where he would open Gurdwara Dukh Nivaran Sahib in 2007 after working as a granthi at Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar for eight years. From then until now, Walia has served as the head of the gurdwara in the heart of Surrey.

From starting the Guru Nanak Food Bank in 2020 to deliver 84,000 grocery packages door-to-door during the COVID-19 pandemic, hosting blanket donation drives, and providing essential supplies to international students, to offering emergency aid and preparing meals to help those displaced by floods, the gurdwara provides community services to those in need. 

“As humans, we have to help each other, we are all the creation of God,” Walia says. “If somebody is in danger or in an emergency, we have to stand for them.”

As a community leader, he says, it’s his duty to help humans irrespective of their race, background, country, or religion. 

“When the community needs help, when people need help, you have to stand up.”

During the 2021 B.C. floods, Walia says volunteers from the gurdwara were first respondents to help those in affected areas. After renting their own helicopters, the temple prepared more than 3,000 meals to help those stranded in Hope because of double mudslides, in addition to opening temporary foodbanks in the area. The gurdwara also provided emergency aid to people during the Lytton wildfires in June 2021. 

“Everybody is welcome at the gurdwara,” Walia says. “We have a free kitchen. Anybody can come and eat … there’s no boundaries.”

About 5,000 people eat food at the temple every day. On weekends, this number goes up to about 12,000, he says. 

A year after the most destructive wildfire season in the province’s recorded history, B.C. prepared for the 2024 wildfire season by “strengthening planning, prevention, and preparedness as well as response and recovery efforts,” the provincial government website reads.

An estimated 1.08 million hectares of land burned in B.C. from more than 1,680 wildfires in 2024. It was the fourth-largest wildfire season recorded in the province’s history.

Lightning caused more than 70 per cent of the wildfires, while almost 30 per cent were attributed to human activity. More than 4,100 properties were affected by evacuation orders, while another 12,500 were affected due to evacuation orders. 

Data from the province found B.C. spent about $2.4 billion on wildfire activity from 2020 to 2023. Over 2.8 million hectares of land burned during the 2023 wildfire season, which is more than the previous three years combined. 

Based on recommendations from the Premier Expert Task Force on Emergencies, established in October 2023, the BC Wildfire Service is collaborating with local community members interested in supporting response efforts. 

The stages of recovery and the kinds of aid a community might need in the immediate aftermath of a disaster often varies depending on each community’s experience and what they think recovery may look like, says Sara Shneiderman, associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). 

Cultural assumptions associated with disaster and recovery often depend on the circumstance, she says. “Situated knowledge” is a term Shneiderman likes to use to describe this phenomenon. 

“The idea that if you’re going to be responding to a disaster in a particular locality, it’s very helpful to have a deep understanding of what the conditions of that locality are like.” 

Instead of thinking about cultural assumptions, she says, more importance needs to be put on situated knowledge. 

Some of this knowledge includes where people live, what their residential patterns, family styles, food, and consumption habits are, and socioeconomic status, among other considerations. To generate appropriate responses, she says it is critical to recognize the community the response is oriented towards, which builds on the idea of situated or place-specific knowledge. 

“Whether it’s going to be a fire or a flood or an earthquake, the particular material conditions or characteristics of that place are also going to determine what’s going to be most feasible and desirable,” Shneiderman says. 

When analyzing disaster response, it’s important to think of a community in a “territorial sense” or in terms of the people who live in a specific area. Residential patterns with people belonging to a certain religious or ethnic group might create generalizations about a community. In communities with mixed residential patterns, making assumptions about lifestyle or livelihood might create issues, she says, which is why the idea of situated knowledge is important. 

Shneiderman advocates for disaster planning, which incorporates this situational knowledge before a disaster takes place, to the City of Vancouver and other government agencies she is involved with. 

In her experience, those coordinating responses often realize the importance of such knowledge after the disaster. 

In disaster experiences around the world, Shneiderman says faith-based or community organizations often have established networks and connections with certain sub-groups of a community with experienced trauma. 

“They may be able to very quickly engage with people at a level that a government or other organization that doesn’t have that existing network might have a more challenging time with.”

Maya Daurio, a sociocultural and environmental anthropologist at UBC, echoes Schneiderman when she says that cultural or faith-based groups can often mobilize people faster. 

“They [are] some of the first people on scene to help with things like cutting down hazard trees that were dead standing trees, or to help with clearing debris from homes that had burned with heavy machinery,” she says, recalling her research from wildfires in Colorado. 

The B.C. Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR) recognizes how faith-based organizations have helped support people and communities by providing food, clothing, water, toiletries, furniture, personal items, structural rebuilding and spiritual, cultural and emotional support in recent years. 

The province has also been working to “strengthen provincial and community capacity” by collaborating with different levels of government and First Nations to reduce the risk of wildfires in their respective communities, the Ministry of Forests and EMCR wrote in a joint email statement to The Runner.

“People are encouraged to understand natural hazard risks and get themselves and households prepared, which includes having the appropriate insurance coverage, emergency plans, and grab and go bags,” the EMCR wrote. 

The four pillars of emergency response — prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery — are what the province has been focusing on in addition to implementing new technologies and innovation, the statement reads. 

“When we are not focused on wildfire suppression, the BC Wildfire Service is working on prevention activities including prescribed fire and cultural burning, as well as supporting wildfire land-based recovery and preparing for the upcoming fire season.” 

Suppression and what happens after a wildfire starts has historically been the focus of wildfire management in B.C., says Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, research and extension specialist at UBC’s Centre for Wildfire Coexistence.

This approach, however, took a shift in 2017 after a “widespread and destructive” wildfire season. The new approach focuses on being more proactive, exploring prevention techniques and initiatives, educating the public, and immersing communities. The other part of this approach — preparedness — includes individual and community-level efforts to ensure that people are prepared before disaster strikes. 

“Communities and individuals and their values are so diverse that it’s really important to have processes in place that allow those different, diverse voices to be heard,” Copes-Gerbitz says. “It’s about having the processes in place that allow that knowledge to inform decision-making.” 

While communities have been advocating for more wildfire input, she says a combination of community values and government thinking has helped create better processes to incorporate different values in decision-making. 

“There’s a wide diversity, and those community-led initiatives are extremely important for bringing community voices to the table.”

Copes-Gerbitz hopes that more pathways will be created to involve different communities, individuals, and families into wildfire management in the future. 

“Wildfires are something we need to learn to live and coexist with. Wildfires are not going away.”

FireSmart BC, a provincial initiative that aims to reduce the risk of wildfire damage to homes, communities, and forests, as well as the BC Wildfire Service mobile app are some opportunities for different communities to be involved in and access information about wildfires, she says. 

Since 2018, the province has also committed $185 million to the FireSmart Community Funding and Support (FCFS) program, which provides funding to local governments and First Nations to reduce wildfire risk and increase community resiliency. 

Friends, family, local networks, and community organizations often provide immediate and on-the-ground response more swiftly in comparison to “slower bureaucracy” or the process of getting formal government aid in the case of major fire events, says Kathryn McConnell, assistant professor of sociology at UBC. 

“There’s a lot of fire risk among smaller [and] more rural communities here in B.C.,” she says, adding that work needs to be done to address the higher risk of these communities to understand the needs of smaller places. 

Emergency response is also more than just an immediate response to a wildfire, says Kristi Rintoul, director of community impact at United Way BC.

The organization started community-wide evacuations in 2017 after the Elephant Hill wildfire burned 191,865 hectares near Ashcroft, B.C. After investigations by the BC Wildfire Service, it was found that the fire was caused due to smoking or smoking materials, which can include matches, cigars, pipe tobacco, cigarettes, and/or marijuana.

This was also when the organization realized the importance of emergency response from the social and charitable sector, Rintoul says. As part of its response, the organization provides clothes, gas vouchers, food assistance, Visa gift cards, stipends, and other essential needs to people. 

United Way also ensures access to emergency response kits in the event of an emergency like cold weather, heat domes, floods, and wildfires. The organization has emergency preparedness guides as well, which are available on its website, for charities, individuals, and seniors to learn what they need for an emergency. 

Preparedness also involves getting communities ready to work with emergency support services during an activation, Rintoul says. Supporting communities through prevention and preparedness as well as capacity building are part of the organization’s assistance. 

“It’s really important that those community partners meet and plan alongside municipalities before an event.”

United Way also works to hire community engagement specialists, who are people from the community facing an emergency, bringing people together through events like lunches and potlucks to help create a sense of normalcy after the event. 

“There’s still a sense of fear [and] trauma, as well as just a bit of isolation and disconnect that comes with going through an event like that,” Rintoul says. 

Over time, Rintoul says the organization’s response evolved after realizing that climate disasters aren’t going away. While it may not be wildfire season yet, she adds, emergency response is needed year-round. 

“We know that climate disasters are increasing, but we also know that communities across the province have the resources or the capacity to support themselves,” she says.  

Much like United Way BC, Khalsa Aid, a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides disaster relief during floods, earthquakes, wildfires, and other natural disasters, partners with local organizations in the region that offer assistance. 

“We partner with people who are experts in that area, and we take recommendations and follow their lead. Guru Nanak [talked about] recognizing the whole human race as one, and part of that is respecting people’s religion or culture,” says Baljit Kaur, the non-profit’s Metro Vancouver director. 

While Khalsa Aid recognizes and follows the principles of Sikhi, Kaur says the organization is not faith based and believes in supporting people of all ethnicities who need help. She says Khalsa Aid is aware of the religious and cultural differences that exist and works with local community organizations to often break down barriers like language and guide them in providing aid. 

Unlike global organizations like United Way, Khalsa Aid doesn’t have any standard operating procedures when it comes to activating and organizing its response, which makes the organization unique, she says. 

“We can just pick up and go and figure things out as we move along …. As long as we’re safe, we can go out and support the best way we can to the people that need it.” 

Kaur adds the organization came to be due to the humanitarian work of its founder, Ravi Singh. 

“To say that we are the very first, loosely, faith and Sikh-based humanitarian crisis organization is a true privilege.” 

Shneiderman recognizes Khalsa Aid’s role in responding quickly to wildfires and delivering food to those in need. 

She adds that faith-based organizations are often “nimble” in responding to wildfire and other climate-related events and can move quickly when compared to formal government response.

Shneiderman finds that government emergency managers in different localities can work on pre-disaster management by connecting with faith-based organizations to understand their networks and build positive relationships in advance to develop a coordinated model of response where different organizations can see each other as resources. 

“It’s really important to recognize the strengths of faith-based organizations and for government emergency managers to see them as a resource in advance rather than it being this ad hoc, haphazard thing that happens when the disaster actually strikes.”