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Kwitsel Tatel, left, speaks to media during a press conference at Camp Cloud near the entrance of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline facility in Burnaby, B.C., on Saturday July 21, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ben NelmsBEN NELMS/The Canadian Press

Protesters at an anti-pipeline camp in Burnaby, B.C., say they will meet with officials to discuss safety measures, but they will not comply with a city-issued evacuation order.

The City of Burnaby says there are safety concerns surrounding “Camp Cloud,” including a two-storey wooden watch house and a fire that protesters describe as sacred and ceremonial.

Protest organizer Kwitsel Tatel says the participants will not leave, nor will they extinguish their fire.

Tatel suggests the structures around the camp’s sacred fire could be modified, if only to refocus the attention away from the physical camp and back to the anti-pipeline protest.

She adds that snuffing out the fire would constitute a breaking of both B.C. Supreme Court and Coast Salish law.

The protesters say the city’s notice, which was issued on Wednesday and expired early Saturday, was written without adequate consideration of a recent court decision or consultation with camp residents.

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