RED IN TOOTH, CLAW & FLAME:

Before European settlement in California, scientists estimate that at least 4.5 million acres burned every year across the state. That's right--California used to see more fire every year than what we saw in last year's "historic" fire season.

Though it's difficult to parse out historical ignition patterns, we know that Native Californians contributed in significant ways to California's fire regimes, actively shaping landscapes with fire to sustain their cultures and livelihoods. Some fire scientists estimate that Native Americans may have intentionally burned up to 2 million acres a year. Research from the Sierra Nevada tells us that during periods where people were most actively managing their landscapes, and using fire as a tool, climate fluctuations like drought and extreme temperatures were less likely to influence how fires burned.

However, in the early 1900s, this practice of cultural burning was criminalized when federal and state officials initiated an era of fire suppression. The stated goal was to save trees--to protect forests from the very process that had shaped and maintained them through time. Yet we know now those losses weren't avoided; rather, by removing fire, the losses were stalled, accentuated. It's clear that the fires that burn now are making up for generations of missed fire. The more we've rejected fire as the natural--and human--process that it is, the more volatile it has become.

During last year's devastating Slater Fire, Bill Tripp, the deputy director of eco-cultural revitalization for the Karuk Tribe, wrote a powerful op-ed reflecting on his people's connection with fire, and the federal and state policies and practices that continue to this day to threaten their ecology and culture. Just as the land was taken from the Karuk people, so too was their relationship with fire. Bill explained that Karuk people were shot for burning, even as recently as the 1930s, and he lamented the way that fire continues to be misunderstood and mismanaged:

Fire itself is sacred. It renews life. It shades rivers and cools the water's temperature. It clears brush and makes for sufficient food for large animals. It changes the molecular structure of traditional food and fiber resources making them nutrient dense and more pliable. Fire does so much more than western science currently understands.

Dominant society has missed the mark this last century or so, trying to make static what is so naturally dynamic. We suppressed fire in the name of the trees, but we forgot about the people and the plants and the landscapes that needed fire, as vital as rain or sunshine or snow. Fire can be deadly, but at its core it's a force of life--refreshing and renewing.

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