{"id":44021,"date":"2021-10-29T17:18:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/for-tribes-good-fire-a-key-to-restoring-nature-and-people\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:17:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:17:05","slug":"for-tribes-good-fire-a-key-to-restoring-nature-and-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/for-tribes-good-fire-a-key-to-restoring-nature-and-people\/","title":{"rendered":"For tribes, \u2018good fire\u2019 a key to restoring nature and people"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elizabeth
Elizabeth Azzuz stands in prayer with a handmade torch of dried wormwood branches before leading a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

WEITCHPEC, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Elizabeth Azzuz stood in prayer on a Northern California mountainside, grasping a torch of wormwood branches, the fuel her Native American ancestors used to burn underbrush in thick forests.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuide our hands as we bring fire back to the land,\u201d she intoned before igniting leaves and needles carpeting the slope above the Klamath River.<\/p>\n

Over several days in October, about 80 acres (32.4 hectares) on the Yurok reservation were set aflame in a program that teaches ancient skills of treating land with fire.<\/p>\n

It was among many \u201ccultural burns\u201d allowed in recent years by state and federal agencies that had long banned them \u2014 a sign of evolving attitudes toward wildfire prevention. Research increasingly confirms low-intensity burns can reduce the risk by consuming fire fuels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wildfires have blackened nearly 6,000 square miles (15,540 square kilometers) in California the past two years. Dozens have died; thousands of homes have been lost.<\/p>\n

\"Stoney
Stoney Timmons, right, a member of the Robinson Rancheria Pomo Indians, uses a torch to light the ground on fire as Spencer Proffit, with the Bureau of Land Management, looks on during a cultural training burn in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 5. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"John
John Bain, 76, a member of the Karuk tribe, walks by his prized 1954 Chevy five-window pickup that was destroyed in last year's Slater Fire which tore through his property and the Klamath National Forest in Happy Camp, California, on Oct. 6. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Water
Water fills a holding tank set up by crew members preparing for a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. To prepare for the one this month in the Klamath region, Yurok leaders studied weather forecasts, scouted mountainous burn areas, positioned water tanks, uncoiled fire hoses, equipped and drilled 30-plus crew members. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sweat
Sweat drips from the face of Nick Hillman, 18, a member of the Yurok Fire Department and a member of the Karuk tribe, as he takes part in a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. To the Yurok and other tribes in the mid-Klamath region, the resurgence of cultural burning is about reclaiming a way of life violently suppressed with the arrival of white settlers in the 1800s. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\"Robert
Robert McConnell Jr, a prescribed fire specialist with Six Rivers National Forest and a member of the Yurok tribe, shovels dirt to put out a fire that climbed the bark of a tree during a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Brody
Brody Richardson, a member of the Yurok tribe, carries a torch as he takes part in a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Crews
Crews lay out hoses in preparation for a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 5. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Elizabeth
Elizabeth Azzuz stands in prayer before leading a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Margo
Margo Robbins shows off a baby basket she made out of hazel wood to participants of a cultural training burn on the Yurok reservation in Weitchpec, California, on Oct. 7. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>David Goldman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But to the Yurok, Karuk and Hupa in the mid-Klamath region, cultural burning is about reclaiming a way of life suppressed with the arrival of white settlers.<\/p>\n

The tribes\u2019 hunter-gatherer lifestyle was devastated by prohibitions on fire that tribes had used for thousands of years to spur growth of acorn-bearing trees, clear space for deer and spur hazel wood stems used for baskets.<\/p>\n

\u201cFire is a tool left by the Creator to restore our environment and the health of our people,\u201d said Azzuz, board secretary for the Cultural Fire Management Council, which promotes burning on ancestral Yurok lands. \u201cFire is life for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merv George, a former Hoopa Valley Tribe chairman who now supervises Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, said officials who once considered native burners \u201carsonists\u201d realize a new approach is needed.<\/p>\n

Two national forests \u2014 Six Rivers and Klamath \u2014 crafted a 2014 landscape restoration partnership with the Karuk tribe and nonprofits that endorsed intentional burns.<\/p>\n

Yurok, Karuk and Hupa activists and The Nature Conservancy later created the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network, whose training burns that have drawn participants from across the U.S. and other countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really exciting and gives me a lot of hope that the tide is changing,\u201d said Margo Robbins, a basket weaver and director of the fire management council. \u201cWe revived our language, our dances, and now, bringing back fire, we\u2019ll restore the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month\u2019s burn involved 30-plus crew members who prepared extensively \u2014 scouting the area, positioning fire hoses and water tanks.<\/p>\n

As Azzuz finished her ceremonial prayer, the wormwood that coaxed the first flames was replaced with modern \u201cdrip torches\u201d \u2014 canisters of gasoline and diesel with spouts and wicks. Team members moved quickly along a dirt trail, flicking burning fuel droplets.<\/p>\n

Smoke billowed. Flames crackled. Tangled foliage was reduced to ash, while bigger oaks, madrones and conifers were largely spared.<\/p>\n

Jose Luis Dulce, a firefighter in his native Spain and Ecuador, hopes to help revive Indigenous techniques in Europe and South America. Stoney Timmons said his tribe \u2014 the Robinson Rancheria Pomo Indians of California \u2014 wants to host its own training session next year.<\/p>\n

Robert McConnell Jr. spent years with Forest Service wildfire crews, attacking from helicopters and driving bulldozers. Now a prescribed fire specialist with Six Rivers National Forest, he works with fire instead of against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s encoded in my DNA,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like there\u2019s a spark in my eye when I see fire get put on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Yurok forestry director Dawn Blake helped light the hillside, she felt a connection with her grandmother, who wove baskets and set fires in the area long ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking and begging about doing this for so long, just spinning our wheels,\u201d said Blake, 49. \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re finally being heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

But tribes want to go beyond training exercises and \u201cfamily burns\u201d on small plots. They\u2019re pushing to operate throughout the vast territories their ancestors occupied.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy ultimate goal is to restore all this land back to a natural state,\u201d said Blaine McKinnon, battalion chief for the Yurok Fire Department.<\/p>\n

Relations with federal and state authorities have improved. But cultural fire leaders say pledges of cooperation aren\u2019t always carried out by local officials, who fear dismissal if fires get out of hand.<\/p>\n

Craig Tolmie, chief deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the agency tries to balance the tribes\u2019 desires for more fire with opposition from a jittery public.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have really been traumatized and shocked by the last two fire seasons,\u201d Tolmie said.<\/p>\n

Under new state laws<\/a>, tribal burners and front-line regulators will work more closely, he said. One measure requires his department to appoint a cultural burning liaison. Another makes it easier to get liability insurance for prescribed fires.<\/p>\n

Still, Tolmie argued that many areas first should be \u201cpre-treated\u201d with mechanical grinding and tree thinning to reduce decades of accumulated debris.<\/p>\n

Chad Hanson, forest ecologist with the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute in California, contends regulators are \u201ctrying to extort tribes\u201d by making cultural burns contingent on logging.<\/p>\n

Tribes should be empowered to handle prescribed burns while Cal Fire and the Forest Service focus on suppressing wildfires, said Bill Tripp, the Karuk tribe\u2019s natural resources director.<\/p>\n

The mid-Klamath area is ideal for a teaching center where cultural burners could \u201cguide us into a new era of living with fire,\u201d Tripp said.<\/p>\n

Tribes are uniquely positioned to train younger generations about stewardship-oriented fire management, said Scott Stephens, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cWe\u2019d need literally thousands of people doing this burning to ramp it up to a scale that\u2019s meaningful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Talon Davis, 27, a member of the Yurok crew, welcomed the opportunity \u201cto show the world what good fire is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how we\u2019re supposed to care for Mother Earth,\u201d he said. \u201cPut fire back on the ground, bring our home back into balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Gillian Flaccus contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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