Photo: Parks Canada Agency/J. Park
At the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus (UBCO), non‑credit course offerings cannot be applied toward a university degree. They are intended for learners seeking to learn new skills or upgrade existing skills, and to enrich their knowledge of specific topics.
Courses will be designed for a wide audience: wildfire agencies, fire departments, First Nations and Indigenous communities, NGOs, industry partners, and landowners. Some introductory courses may be available to the general public.
Fees will be set per course and will be listed on the registration page when available.
Registration will be available through UBCO’s lifelong learning portal.
No. CPFTP is a decentralized program offering training across regions and online, with some in‑person opportunities in Kelowna.
Formats vary by course and may include classroom learning, online instruction, and hands‑on experiential training.
No. Certification is managed by provincial or federal authorities. Participants should consult their organization or jurisdiction for certification requirements.
Decades of fire suppression have allowed vegetation to accumulate, creating dense, aging forests with fewer open areas and reduced biodiversity. In many fire‑dependent ecosystems, the absence of regular fire has increased the risk of large, severe wildfires.
Historically, frequent natural fires and Indigenous cultural burning created more open forests and grasslands. These landscapes limited how large fires could grow. Today, the loss of those natural fuel breaks means fires are more likely to spread over vast areas.
Prescribed fire helps restore fire as a natural process. By reducing fuel loads and creating a diverse mosaic of burned and unburned areas, prescribed fire can limit wildfire spread and severity. It also produces a wider range of fire intensities than today’s drought‑driven wildfires, which can cause greater damage to soils, wildlife habitat, and ecosystems.
Safety is the top priority. Each prescribed fire undergoes an extensive planning process that can take months or even years. Plans include trained personnel, fire guards, contingency resources, weather and fuel prescriptions, and detailed monitoring protocols.
During planning, practitioners assess the prescribed fire area for natural or human made barriers (such as roads or fire guards) that can help contain the fire. If needed, plans may include vegetation clearing, pre wetting areas prior to ignition, or installing sprinkler systems. During implementation of the fire, holding resources—such as firefighters, engines, and aircraft—may be on site or on call to keep the fire within defined boundaries or respond if the fire spreads into adjacent areas.
Fire and weather are dynamic. Prescribed fires are conducted only under specific conditions, but crews are trained and equipped to shift immediately from planned burning to suppression if conditions change.
After ignition, fires are continuously monitored using tools like remote cameras, satellite heat detection, aerial flights, and ground patrols. If suppression is required to meet safety or ecological objectives, resources are deployed promptly. While risk can be reduced through careful planning and resourcing, it cannot be eliminated entirely. Practitioners remain prepared to respond if a fire does not behave as expected.
Because fire behaviour and weather can change rapidly, there is always a possibility that a prescribed fire may not proceed exactly as intended. Throughout planning and implementation, practitioners continuously assess risk and are prepared to activate contingency plans.
This includes ensuring adequate personnel and equipment are on site or available to respond to spot fires or fire escapes. Weather, fuel moisture, and fire behaviour are monitored in real time to support timely decision‑making. If conditions warrant, prescribed fire operations shift immediately to suppression.
Prescribed fire is the intentional, carefully planned use of fire to meet specific ecological and land‑management objectives.
It is applied only when predefined weather, fuel, and environmental conditions are met, and is guided by scientific knowledge, applied experience, and an understanding of fire ecology. Planning involves considering ecological processes alongside cultural and social values, community context, and long‑term land management goals.
While some prescribed fires may burn under conditions similar to wildfires, they are typically shorter in duration and produce less smoke. Prescribed fires are ignited only when wind direction and atmospheric conditions allow smoke to disperse safely and minimize impacts to nearby communities.
Planning typically includes:
Understanding the fire ecology and historical fire regime of an ecosystem—frequency, severity, and seasonality—is critical. During planning, practitioners define clear objectives that guide the desired fire they want to restore: intensity, severity, and timing.
For example, if a wildlife habitat requires frequent, low‑intensity/severity surface fire to maintain important forage species, the burn prescription will be developed for fuel and weather conditions that support that outcome. Pre‑ and post‑fire monitoring plots are often established to measure impacts on vegetation, wildlife, and soils.
Post‑fire reviews help determine whether objectives were achieved and inform future prescribed fire planning.
Prescribed fire plans include strict smoke‑management requirements. Burns are conducted only under conditions that minimize smoke impacts, such as favourable wind direction, good atmospheric ventilation, or ahead of incoming precipitation.
Unlike wildfires—which often burn for long periods and during drought conditions—prescribed fires are designed to limit both the duration and concentration of smoke and to avoid significant impacts to nearby communities whenever possible.
Burn locations are selected based on ecological and land management objectives, often in consultation with subject matter experts like biologists, foresters, Indigenous knowledge holders, and local communities. Natural or human‑made features—rivers, roads, or previously burned areas—are used to help contain fire safely.
Prescribed fire is used to achieve multiple objectives, including:
Many Canadian ecosystems depend on fire for regeneration and long‑term health. Excluding fire can lead to dense, stressed forests that are more vulnerable to insects, disease, and high‑severity wildfires.
Prescribed fire reduces these risks to communities and supports healthier, more resilient forests while helping firefighters manage wildfire more safely and effectively.
Many ecosystems in Canada are fire‑adapted. More than a century of fire exclusion has increased wildfire risk and reduced biodiversity and ecological integrity. Prescribed fire helps restore natural processes and reduces the likelihood of severe, unplanned wildfires.
Prescribed fires vary widely, from low‑intensity surface fires in grasslands and open forests to larger, landscape‑scale fires. The appearance depends on the ecosystem and the specific objectives of the burn.
Depending on complexity, planning can take months or even years. Practitioners may also wait extended periods for the right weather and environmental conditions.
Burn duration depends on scale and objectives. Many burns are timed ahead of precipitation to limit duration. Larger prescribed fires may burn longer but are closely monitored to ensure safety and effectiveness.
Projects include pre‑ and post‑burn monitoring of vegetation, wildlife, and fire effects. This data collected is used to evaluate outcomes and improve future prescribed fire practices.
Prescribed fire reduces flammable fuels near communities and creates a more varied landscape. This mosaic of burned and unburned areas can slow wildfire spread, limit fire size, and make fires easier and safer to suppress.
Fire‑adapted species have evolved to regenerate after fire. Recovery depends on fire severity, soil conditions, hydrology, and seed availability. In some cases, regeneration patterns may differ from historical conditions due to climate change or past fire exclusion.
Most wildlife is adapted to fire. Animals typically move away or take shelter in areas less likely to burn. A small number of animals may be adversely affected, but impacts are more moderate than with fast‑moving, high‑intensity wildfires.
Practitioners also aim to conduct burns outside primary nesting or breeding periods to reduce impacts on young animals.
Prescribed fire is the planned and managed application of fire under specific conditions to achieve defined ecological and land management objectives by colonial organizations or non-indigenous fire practitioners. While there are similarities, there are many important differences between the two practices.
Cultural burning is always Indigenous-led and has specific cultural objectives. Indigenous knowledge drives when, where and how specifically to apply fire to the land but generally cultural fires are slow and cool burns. Often cultural burns are family centered and focus on traditional methods for lighting and maintaining fires.
On the other hand, prescribed fires are most often driven by colonial organizations for a variety of land management or ecological objectives (which may overlap with cultural objectives) and are guided by western science and cover a wider range of fire size and intensity – including large, mixed or high intensity stand replacing fires. Prescribed fires are almost exclusively lit using equipment such as drip torches or helicopter mounted ignition devices and using a variety of chemicals and accelerants to ignite the fire.
Frank Lake and Dr. Amy Cardinal Christianson (2019) define Indigenous fire stewardship as the use of fire by various Indigenous, Aboriginal, and tribal peoples to: (1) modify fire regimes, adapting and responding to climate and local environmental conditions to promote desired landscapes, habitats, species, and (2) to increase the abundance of favored resources to sustain knowledge systems, ceremonial, and subsistence practices, economies, and livelihoods. Indigenous fire stewardship is the intergenerational teachings of fire-related knowledge, beliefs, and practices among fire-dependent cultures regarding fire regimes, fire effects, and the role of cultural burning in fire-prone ecosystems and habitats.
