Fire is medicine
The Karuk Tribe's Traditional Fire Knowledge can help save California
Fire is medicine. Fire is actually needed keep the environment healthy and productive. In many indigenous societies, particularly those with fire-dependent ecologies, there exists thousands of years of traditional knowledge of fire management.
Places that are prone to fire need human stewardship and the Karuk Tribe of Northern California has been leading the way in sharing their traditional knowledge of controlled burns according to tradition.
Indigenous societies’ worldview is fairly consistent with the principle that when you take something from the earth you return with a favor, gift or reciprocal exchange of good to contribute to the continuation of the gift from the earth. Called “reciprocity” it is a way to describe a complex relationship between humans and the earth. If you are a student of environmental studies you may view this as similar to the concept of sustainability adapted by the Bruntland Commission in 19871 which has continued to develop as a common law principle in international law and can be found in almost all environmental treaties after this concept was articulated. It defines “sustainability” as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”2
However, the UN definition of “sustainability” is focused entirely on human needs. It does not have a reciprocal requirement to return the favor to the earth for its gifts that it gives us. Taking nuts from a tree, might be reciprocated by removing insect pests you see on its trunk, for example. Offering ceremonial tobacco to the earth, is a general gift of reciprocity that continues to remind humans they need to reciprocate for the food, shelter and water provided by the environment.3 The use of controlled burns may be one example where the priority is not economics but rather the continued health of the forest and its inhabitants.
Here are some principles that are applicable both in traditional understanding and western science methods.
Elements of Traditional Fire Knowledge:4
geology, topography, soils
vegetation, fuels
weather
fire behavior
fire operation
fire effects
fire governance
other social factors
Tribes use prescribed burns to remove fire hazards from the forest so timing of the burn is to optimize the growth of the forest. Prescribed burns also are for purposes of hunting, crop management, range management, fireproofing, clearing areas around streams and rivers, pest management, roads and trails, basket materials and firewood purposes. Each use has a different perspective and collaboratively they decide on the best way to use fire.
For example, the basketweavers need bear grass, dear grass and hazel bush shoots that are just right. The use of periodic fire ensures the continued supply of these materials that have been used for baskets for 6,000 years.5
Without fire most of the oak trees would be destroyed by pests.
Karuk Nation and the State of California
Knowing when to start fires and how much area for burning is based on traditional knowledge and all the factors described above in traditional fire management.
The partnership was supported by an Executive Orders signed by Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. No one needed advice about fire management more than California with their epic fires threatening the entire state already suffering from draught and water shortages.
However, California has seen drops in useage in per capita use as well as agricultural use among its three categories of water assessment (urban, agriculture and environment).6 Despite these management practices, draught, lower reservoir resources since 2022 and the Santa Ana winds have led to a combination of conditions that only planning with controlled burns could have mitigated.
While California had insufficient water to put out the recent fires of 2024, it was not due to the disassembly of four dangerously old dams (built between 1918 and 1962)7 on the Klamath River in Oregon and California. The dams contributed to not only the rapid decline of the salmon, but the water quality of these massive bodies of water. When the water is toxic it is not just deadly to the salmon, it is deadly to humans. Since the dams were removed, the water quality has already started to improve through its natural aeration and filtering processes. Prescribed burns and listening to fire management knowledge that has worked for millenia would prevent most of these tragic fires.
But California has not adopted these practices to a large degree, although in northern California they are making progress in consultation with the Karuk Nation. The need to have traditional fires at the time that is selected often does not match the fire permit schedule of state and local agencies, creating bureaucratic barriers to this time-sensitive process. The need to burn controlled fires often causes panic from neighbors who see the fires and think it may be an uncontrolled fire. Education and communication is needed to make sure the public is aware of the processes and do not try to block the collaboration out of a lack of communication.8
What next. . .
Accelerate cooperation with Tribes with fire-dependent ecologies and make fire management a routine practice, year round. Particularly in areas like California where all the wrong conditions can occur at once and lead to a tragic result, traditional ecological fire knowledge could just save the forest, the built environment and the humans.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
https://tapestryinstitute.org/ways-of-knowing/key-concepts/relationship-reciprocity/
M. Huffman 2013. Many elements of Traditional Fire Knowledge: Ecology and Society 18 (4):3.
https://www.compassrosedesign.com/blogs/blog/fire-and-california-native-basketry?srsltid=AfmBOop0N0ZDqnOn4qI_8V2DZA4PhiTpBgPnzNhrk8YvN8woQPhS4XnV
https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/10/22/klamath-dam-removal-river-southern-oregon-northern-california-salmon/
Problems described by a Karuk citizen involved in consultation with state and local governments in California, in a presentation in 2019.