California on fire
Wildfires call for community action.
Summer is when Californians look forward to cloudless beach days and warm, sunny weather. Rather than the typical greetings of clear blue skies, the state’s 2020 was met with bright orange, smoky hues. It’s no shock that these kinds of wildfires have been occurring for years, but fires of this size are some of the worst forest fires California has seen in decades. The L.A. Times reported, “On Sept. 9, the massive August Complex became the largest fire in the state’s history. 2020 has already shattered the all-time record with 3.2 million acres burned so far compared to the 7.2 million acres burned in total from 2001 to 2010.” In only one year, the 2020 summer fires had already burned almost half the amount of land that was burned in the span of ten years.
With these fires showing no indication of slowing, officials turn to techniques once used by the Native Americans who inhabited the land. California tribes in the past had annually conducted controlled burnings of the forests to help clear underbrush, invasive plants and insect populations, and cultivate the land for more nutrient rich soil. Burning for these tribes is not used solely for the benefit of the environment but plays a large part in their cultural practices as a group. Frank Kanawha Lake, a research ecologist with the USDA Forest Service, wildland firefighter and Karuk descendant defines cultural burning as “the intentional lighting of smaller, controlled fires to provide a desired cultural service, such as promoting the health of vegetation and animals that provide food, clothing, ceremonial items and more.” While some regions like the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California have been looking to Native Americans for assistance, other groups use their own methods of controlled burning to protect communities in the forests of California.
Today, cultural fire is a form of what is now called prescribed fire. The Southern Sierra Prescribed Fire Council describes this as “the knowledgeable and skillful application of a planned ignition in specific environmental conditions (e.g., fuel moisture, temperature, smoke dispersion, topography etc.) to achieve [specific] resource objectives.” The ceremonial aspects of cultural burning are separate from the practices of prescribed burning that the USDA Forest Service applies to the landscape.
Dave Gabaldon, a forestry fuels technician with the Fuels and Vegetation Management team of the USDA Forest Service in Arcadia also studied forestry at Citrus College. Gabaldon said prescribed burning has always been a tool the Forest Service has used. “There are different reasons as to why prescribed burning is used one year more than the next, depending on how environmental conditions are or if there was an intense fire season before,” Gabaldon said. His team would survey burns while monitoring and checking to see if prescribed burning was helping wildlife and flora. After analyzing the data they collected before and after the fire season, they carefully set a treatment to protect communities in the area.
For the past few years, Citrus College’s Wildland Resources and Forestry Program within the Natural Sciences Department has partnered with Gabaldon’s team in the USDA Forestry Service to collect data and take surveys of the land. One of the main projects the student volunteers were assigned to help with was preparation of sites that were to be treated with a particular kind of controlled burn known as pile burning. “The students would assist me with selecting fuel sampling plots to estimate the existing vegetation prior to the burn and before any hand thinning treatments. They marked locations, took photo points, hung prescribed fire warning signs to alert the public, and helped identify any plants that were to be left,” Gabaldon said. The data that Citrus interns helped to collect, coupled with data collected prior to fire season, helped the USDA Forestry Service make calculated decisions as to when and where it is safest to hold these controlled burns. Logos asked if the USDA forestry service has received any pushback from the local community regarding the prescribed burning, Gabaldon declined to comment on the matter.
Kevin Nunez is an elder of the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe, which has been indigenous to the Los Angeles Basin for 7,000 years. Nunez works for the City of Azusa and is his tribe’s liaison to the Forest Service. “The Tongva Tribe are supporters of fire breaks and of fire prevention mitigation in populated areas by removal of ground and debris and ladder growth. At this time, we are not supporters of controlled burns, both because of ecological impact as well as culturally. We did not practice controlled burns in the San Gabriel mountains of our territory,” Nunez said. He recently led a successful fire mitigation prevention clean up at Crystal Lake. On Oct. 25, 2020, he wrote a Facebook post of gratitude to all who volunteered with the clean up: “We were over 40 strong with ages 4 to 82 years young!! Much love and thanks to all the volunteers!! Aweesh Kone Xaa!! All done with strict Covid19 precautions!! Canyon City Environmental Project and the Gabrielino Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians are thankful for the awesome support!!”
In light of this past year’s worsening fire season conditions, it’s clear that these groups and community volunteers are attempting to do their own part in keeping our forests cleared and prepared for the future. Moving forward, continued caution must be taken by officials in the Forest Service, local tribes, and, perhaps most importantly, California residents to protect the wildlife and homes in the forests.
