Barry Law Environmental and Earth Law Journal

2020 saw one of the deadliest wildfires in California. At the end of the year, 10,000 fires burned over 4.2 million acres of land. [1] One wildfire in August, called the Complex fire, began as 38 separate fires that combined into the first “gigafire” due to its burning of over 1 million acres of land. [2]  In addition, there were 33 fatalities caused by wildfires in California. [3] This has caused concern to the state’s wildfire management. A method of wildfire management that focuses on quickly extinguishing wildfires, called fire suppression, has caused California’s wildfires to grow worse due to the lack of upkeep to remove the thickness of the dried vegetation after a dry summer. [4] The dried vegetation becomes fuel for the wildfires and have destroyed over 10,000 homes and businesses. [5] Fire suppression is a reactive emergency method of dealing with wildfire that was implemented in the 20^th century to protect watersheds and commercial timber supplies. [6] Due to the multiplication effect of climate change and the steadily increasing drought seasons in California, this method is limiting.

Uncontrolled wildfires have had fatal effects on the marginalized, where the 2020’s wildfires killed 2 tribal members in the Karuk territory in northern California. [7] Farther south, The Hoopa Valley Reservation saw 3 major blazes burn nearly 100,000 acres around them. [8] Now California officials are looking to abandon policies involving fire suppression and increase the use of prescribed burns. [9] The practice of prescribed burns has been a cultural tradition for Native Americans for hundreds of years prior to Western settlement. [10]However, Native Americans were brutally and systematically stripped of their right to tend their land. [11]

Prescribed burns, or a planned fire, is a proactive method to reduce the threat of wildfires. [12] The practice involves planning which areas are overgrown and how conditions like wind and moisture are suitable for fire management. [13] This knowledge has been passed down through tribal generations, but until recently, were seen as unscientific. [14] U.S. policy has caused a cultural gap within many tribal communities. In an interview, Bill Tripp of Karuk Tribe stated that, “Without being able to freely engage in our cultural burning practices, we lose our culture. We can’t teach someone how to make a basket if we don’t have the materials that are pliable enough to make them. And we can’t access our food resources. We lose our salmon, we lose our acorns, we lose all those things, and we don’t have a culture. We just slowly disappear.” [15]  Still, Native Americans face penalty when they attempt to burn practices within their reservations and territories, including state and federal prosecution. [16] Yet, these prescribed burns are not only meant to prevent wildfires, but to increase the tribe’s yield for agriculture. In the North Fork Rancheria reservation, tribal members begin the burn with a blessing, then harvest branches used in basket weaving, followed by burning surrounding areas where dead grass exists. This cultural burn provides for new growth of basket weaving materials that can later be used or sold. [17] An increase in recognition to change state policies to include cultural burns has been marred with hurdles from state and federal agencies. [18]  In Northern California, tribes like the Karuk and Yurok have worked together with the California Department of Forestry to manage fire on tribal lands but are detoured by state air regulations and have difficulty obtaining special permits for cultural burns. [19] Despite these hurdles, the Karuk and Yurok have made significant progress by creating fire management councils and training tribal members to become fire practitioners. [20] In addition, they have formed the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network that includes tribes from New Mexico, Minnesota, and Oregon. [21]

There is still plenty of work to complete for the Northern California tribes. The amount of cultural  burns necessary to drastically reduce the risk of fatal wildfire far surpasses the number of acres currently being burned and the available group of trained fire practitioners and firefighters to do it. [22] This has become a priority for the tribes, as well as having a diversity of perspectives to help change the culture of fire management. [23]

Written by Janice John, EELJ Associate Editor