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Covering Wildfire: A Toolkit for Editors, Reporters, and Media Professionals

As Canada experiences its second-worst wildfire season on record, the Mitigating Wildfire Initiative (MWI) at 91ܽ has launched Covering Wildfire: A Toolkit for Editors, Reporters, and Media Professionals, a free, national resource designed to strengthen wildfire reporting from coast to coast to coast.

The toolkit grew out of the Wildfire Journalism Bootcamp, held June 16–18, 2025, on the traditional territory of the Secwépemc Peoples. Convened by MWI in partnership with McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy and the University of British Columbia Centre for Wildfire Co-Existence, with support from the Max Bell Foundation, the three-day gathering brought together 50 journalists, wildfire practitioners, Indigenous Firekeepers, scientists, and community leaders from across Canada to build trust, share knowledge, and co-create practical tools for nuanced, trauma-aware wildfire coverage.

The toolkit is a collective, co-created offering from the 50 folks who gathered at the bootcamp for other journalists across the nation, aiming to support them in telling this critically important story. It offers seven key pathways for stronger coverage, from treating wildfire as a year-round story and centring underrepresented voices to improving access between media and agencies and adopting trauma-aware reporting practices. It also includes a ready-to-use “wildfire story bank” to support proactive, solutions-focused reporting.