Workbook to Create a Cultural Burn Pathway
August 07, 2025
Many Indigenous Peoples have long put fire on the land to achieve cultural objectives, including increasing the abundance of berries and medicines and reducing dry grasses and diseased trees that fuel wildfire.
The Create a Cultural Burn Pathway workbook, released by the First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS) and the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI), aims to help Indigenous Nations create cultural burn programs that reduce wildfire risk and revitalize a core part of our relationship with the land.
Indigenous Nations bring a range of current experience with cultural fire. To meet Nations where they are, FNESS and ILI launched a multi-year community-based research project, involving over 50 Elders and knowledge holders, numerous gatherings and workshops, extensive peer reviews, and multiple edits to the workbook to reflect all the input.
The result is a workbook containing seven worksheets that walk communities through the development of a strong cultural fire program—no matter what stage they are in.
Cultural fire is culture and location specific. So instead of a prescriptive approach, each worksheet poses a set of questions and prompts that can be answered collectively. You can find the full set of resources below:
Complete Workbook: Create a Cultural Burn Pathway
Worksheet 1: Creating a Cultural Burn Pathway for Your Community
Worksheet 2: Retaining and Sharing Fire Knowledge in Your Community
Worksheet 3: Walking the Land to Plan a Burn
Worksheet 4: Cultural Burn Day
Worksheet 5: Cultural Burn: Short Term Effects
