What if Indigenous women ran controlled burns?
It was Saturday, a hot one. In the remote mountains of Northern California, a group of mostly Indigenous women took a break from conducting prescribed burns. Some sat on mats in the early October shade, pounding woodwardia fern, splitting maidenhair ferns and weaving the stems into baskets, while others stood at a stump by the fire pit, using a wooden paddle to stir hot rocks into a big pot of acorn soup, steaming it from within. Salmon heads and fillets smoked on stakes around a fire pit. Children ran and shrieked until scolded by elders, who were listening to cultural presentations about prescribed fire and weaving. This was the midpoint of the two-week inaugural Karuk Women’s TREX, or prescribed fire training exchange — the first-ever such training tailored specifically for Indigenous women.
Historically, in Káruk society, women were responsible for maintaining village areas with fire. Men burned, too, but farther away, usually on remote hunting grounds. But cultural fire was suppressed in 1911, when the Weeks Act outlawed igniting fires on public lands. Today, that colonialist law is still considered a conservation landmark.
Rekindling with fire
Wearing deerskin leather gloves dampened with drops of diesel and gasoline, I tilted my drip-torch down toward the earth and ignited the dry blackberry bush below. With a flick of my wrist, I made a C-shaped movement and the fuel followed my gesture, lighting the vines and leaves quickly. Aside from the faint crackle of the fire, it was silent where I stood on a hilltop at Andrew Reasoner Wildlife Preserve near Eugene, Oregon. I paused to look at my surroundings. Hundred-year-old Oregon white oaks, draped in old man’s beard — a lichen called Usnea — reached toward the crisp blue sky. Yarrow leaves poked through the bunches of invasive crabgrass, and sword and bracken ferns dotted the landscape. The hairy yellow leaves of a hazel plant next to me indicated the changing seasons.
Groups Seek Liability Reforms to Fight Wildfire
According to Karuk Natural Resources Director and traditional fire practitioner Bill Tripp, "My ancestors practiced cultural burning for millennia along the Klamath and Salmon Rivers. Low intensity burns at the right time of year reduce wildfire risks in our communities and promote forest health. We must enact policies to enable and encourage rural communities to do this important work."