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Across Canada, massive fires and hazardous smoke have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate from northern and remote communities to shelters and hotels in large cities. For many, their homes, businesses, and the ecosystems that nourish them are at risk of burning down, or already have.

With more than 7.6 million hectares burned across Canada in 2025 already, . In August 2025, the Canadian Red Cross announced that the 2025 wildfires response operation .

Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately affected by the negative impacts of climate change and disasters like . First Nations in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba are those most often evacuated, with many facing long-term displacement from their home communities.

From 1980 to 2021, Indigenous communities made up even though they are only five percent of Canada's population. The 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive recorded, and resulted in the .

Our ongoing research on Indigenous evacuation experiences includes interviews with more than 100 First Nations and Métis evacuees, firefighters, emergency managers and community organizers, as well as non-Indigenous frontline evacuee workers, and provincial and federal employees.

We worked with an Indigenous Circle of Aunties and youth leaders in designing safe evacuation spaces and processes. We explored solutions for improving evacuation outcomes for First Nations and Métis communities by understanding inequitable impacts, distinct experiences and by focusing on supporting families throughout the displacement.

Family separation, overlapping disasters

We've learned from that wildfire is not the only disaster facing evacuees. Inadequate response and unsafe conditions during the evacuation and while sheltering have left long-lasting scars on individuals, families and communities.

A lack of self-determination in disaster response results in externally imposed and culturally unsafe practices, further deepening pre-existing marginalization and trauma within Indigenous communities. Not everyone can pay for food, transportation or shelter during an evacuation.

Community and family structure, and cultural and socioeconomic realities, produce key distinctions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous evacuation experiences. These include family separation, racism, recurring evacuations and extended periods of displacement.

Following the devastating 2021 fires, floods and landslides in British Columbia, were more likely to experience longer displacement. Indigenous communities had a higher percentage of peoples with disability experiencing disasters, and experienced greater challenges related to displacement.

Family members were separated and dispersed to different shelter sites, while many had difficulty accessing health care, accommodation, housing and healthy food.

This is because evacuations are often phased. The first phase includes pregnant women, the elderly and people with medical conditions, while subsequent phases include those with lower risk. This phasing can mean elderly grandparents are evacuated first to shelters hundreds of kilometers away from grandchildren in their care.

Such phased evacuations can leave youth alone in unfamiliar places. Shelters fill up quickly, and that can mean there is no room left for family members evacuated in subsequent phases to join relatives evacuated in the first phase. So, grandchildren end up in different shelters in different cities from their grandparents.

Compounding risks

There is evidence of . Emergency management practices that result in family separation in evacuations amplify the ongoing trauma of residential schools and the '60s Scoop.

Unsafe evacuation conditions and the length of displacement from their homes people experience () have also led to increased .

In the initial evacuation, evacuees are often housed in congregate shelters, such as large arenas or community centers. The Aunties and the youth we spoke with explained how the noise and chaos of congregated sheltering creates a stressful environment for families that make it impossible to feel safe, and sometimes, to sleep.

For residential school survivors, being forced from their homes and communities, sleeping in rows of cots in arenas with bright institutional lights, and standing in line for food was a triggering and traumatic experience.

Once the immediate chaos of early evacuation days pass, people need to be moved from congregate shelters into more family-friendly accommodations, such as hotel rooms. Providing accommodations for multi-generational families and spaces for ceremony can significantly .

Additional supports for Elders, people with chronic medical needs, single mothers, children and youth are required. The Aunties and youth's recommendations are depicted in the medicine wheel, and organized as spaces, supports, safety and services. At the center of all the recommendations is a focus on displaced families.

Evacuations do not impact everyone the same way, and Indigenous evacuees can be . Indigenous emergency managers must be given control when and where possible, and a focus on self-determination is essential for ensuring that this trauma can be addressed by creating Indigenous-led spaces for healing and resilience.

Ultimately, to acknowledge sovereignty. Emergency management in general, and evacuations in particular, are precisely the opportunities where Indigenous leadership, agency and sovereignty are most needed for their communities, with the greatest return on investment.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .