Canada is lifting its commitment to prescribed fire with the establishment of a new national training program funded by a large injection of philanthropic money.
The new $CAD 8 million Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program (CPFTP), is co-developed by the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus and the Weston Family Foundation.
Launched this week, it aims to address what it has identified as a gap in Canada’s ability to use and scale prescribed fire as a land management and ecological restoration tool and has taken inspiration from similar programs underway or in development in the US and Australia.
The program founders are working off the belief that prescribed burning is vastly underused in Canada and is widely constrained by the limited availability of training, mentorship, and opportunities to gain operational experience in the field.
The program will educate and train practitioners across Canada through regional hubs, tailored to Canada’s diverse and varied landscapes.
“Canada’s ability to expand the use of prescribed fire has been constrained by a lack of coordinated training and clear pathways to operational experience,” said Dr. Mathieu Bourbonnais, Assistant Professor, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science at UBC Okanagan and Director of the Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program.
“This program provides the leadership and structure needed to establish national standards, deliver regionally grounded training, and build the capacity required to apply prescribed fire safely, responsibly, and at scale.”
Wildfire Today spoke with Dr Bourbannais about how the program will work.
There are established prescribed burning training programs in the US, and others in development in places like Australia. Is this Canadian program modelled on any of these?
We conducted a comprehensive review of prescribed fire training programs in other countries while developing the framework for the Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program / Programme canadien de formation en brûlage dirigé. Programs in the United States and Australia offer valuable examples, and as our program evolves, we will continue to learn from them and explore opportunities for collaboration on training and curriculum.
At the same time, it’s essential that a Canadian program reflects the needs, priorities, and fire management realities of our own regions and partners. While there are important lessons to draw from international models, our focus is tailoring the program to Canada’s diverse landscapes, governance structures, and operational requirements.
How will you include cultural fire in the program?
A central part of our mission is to support Indigenous-led fire stewardship in Canada. We recognize that prescribed fire and cultural fire are not the same thing, and that many of Canada’s fire-adapted ecosystems have been shaped by Indigenous cultural fire practices. That history and knowledge will be reflected across the program, both in national-level content and regionally delivered courses which will be co-developed with Indigenous partners.
The program is being shaped with guidance from national Indigenous organizations, including the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, the Thunderbird Collective, and the National Indigenous Fire Safety Council, who serve as key members of our advisory committee. Our goal is to ensure the program is accessible to Indigenous-led fire organizations and communities, and to support their leadership in revitalizing cultural fire. We will also work closely with regional Indigenous partners and Nations so that training reflects Indigenous knowledge, priorities, and perspectives, and to help create space for Indigenous-led cultural fire work to thrive.
Will the training be specific to Canada’s geographical regions or is it more general?
Our program will use a hybrid approach for delivering training. The theoretical parts of prescribed fire, like fire weather, fire behaviour, burn planning, communications, and fire ecology, will be offered online in English and French to reflect Canada’s two official languages. This will allow learners across the country access to core knowledge in a flexible way.
Because Canada is so big and ecologically diverse, the hands-on components will be regionally grounded. Field-based training, including operational prescribed fire, ignitions, holding, and fire effects monitoring, will be delivered through five regional hubs: West, North, Central, East, and Atlantic. Each hub will have a regional lead and a training and outreach facilitator who work closely with partners to make sure the training reflects local conditions and needs.
At the same time, we know that the absence of national standards and qualifications for prescribed fire roles has been a barrier to scaling the use of prescribed burning in Canada. Over the next few years, we’ll be working with partners to address those gaps, while still recognizing the importance of regionally-based training.
How will you include the best and latest prescribed burning science into the training?
The University of British Columbia Okanagan is a national leader in wildfire and prescribed fire science. Hosting the program within a university allows us to update course content rapidly as new research, tools, and lessons emerge. Our five regional hubs will play an important role in keeping training grounded in real-world conditions. For example, they will support ongoing fire-effects monitoring and fire ecology research with local partners, so we can integrate region-specific outcomes and ecosystem responses into the curriculum.
Who can do the training?
The Program will be offered through continuing education and professional development at UBC Okanagan, which makes it broadly accessible to a wide range of participants. While the training will support the needs of wildfire agencies, it is also designed for diverse groups, including Indigenous Nations and communities, fire practitioners, land managers, fire departments, NGOs, industry, and landowners.
Because people come to prescribed fire with very different backgrounds, the Program will offer training pathways for different roles in prescribed fire. These will range from introductory and awareness-level opportunities for those who are new to fire, all the way up to the competencies required to lead complex prescribed fire operations.
Who pays for an individual’s training?
Over the next two years, we’ll be working with partners across the country and the Weston Family Foundation to develop a long-term sustainability plan for the Program, which will include establishing a fee structure for the different courses. As the program grows, we expect that funding will come from several different sources, including organizations sponsoring their staff, individual registrations, and continued partnership support.
When does the training begin?
We already have training pilots scheduled to begin in the fall of 2026. Over the following two years, our goal is to run pilots in all five regions, and we expect to be offering the full suite of training by 2028.
For more information about the program and to sign up for a newsletter, visit the website rxfire.ca / rxfeu.ca
