Good Fire: Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Practice

Here are some links to Indigenous Californian sites where you can find out more about the tribes and how you can help with sovereignty and cultural burning!  Amah Mutsun Land Trust (New site!) Previous site:  Amah Mutsun Land Trust North Fork Mono of California Karuk Tribe Yurok Tribe

Big Horn Fire at Night by Frankie Lopez Beneficial Fire ...is becoming more common and better understood with each passing year. As researchers and indigenous peoples find stronger evidence for anthropogenic fire in the recent past and understand how it was used to create and maintain environments throughout California, and beyond, we are better able to use fire as a tool rather than fear it.  One example comes from Yosemite National Park which I've personally witnessed using prescribed burning. They have been doing so for quite some time now to reduce fuel loads and prevent catastrophic fire damage in the dense redwood forests within the park. The state of Georgia, US and parts of Canada have been using prescribed burning for decades to continue the work indigenous peoples started thousands of years ago.  Now please check out this short video on "Indigenous Fire Management, Sovereignty & the State of California" which features several indigenous Californian leaders a...

 Cultural Burning  ...is a land management practice used to produce and promote particular landscape changes for cultural reasons. An example of this comes from California Indian basketmakers. Weaving these elaborately detailed baskets requires very straight and flexible plant materials which are rarely found outside of a relatively recently burned area. This means basketmakers who require these materials must forage in very specific locations for particular plants that have recently regrown after a fire. This is incredibly difficult to do if fire suppression has prevented burning of these essential plants. Unburned plants become rigid, woody, and are rarely found straight enough to be of any use making them useless to native basketmakers. These cultural traditions evolved alongside fire and its regular use on California landscapes. In fire's absence these cultural traditions can no longer be maintained. Therefore, many indigenous peoples in California today are pushing for a ...

Anthropogenic fire, ... or human manipulated, created and managed fire, has been used for thousands of years. That hasn't  stopped people from fearing fire, however. From fear (and colonialism), grew the many preventative and suppressive measures people take today at limiting fire across vast landscapes around the globe. Many Californians can attest to the voracious fires experienced in the drier ecosystems across the state. The abundant  Fire-fighting plane by Filippos Sdralias seasonal smoke traveling from one city to the next, smothering the beautiful outdoors, blocking out the sun in a hazy orange glow makes one wonder how people before today dealt with such abhorrent conditions. How did California Indians deal with such hazards with no particulate-filtering masks and helicopters to drop thousands of gallons of water from the skies above? Well, they didn't need these technologies. They had developed proactive burning practices. Meaning, smaller, more fr...