Our Future Now! – Podcast of the NCC - 26: Using Indigenous Practices To Live with Wildfires

Using Indigenous Practices To Live with Wildfires

In this episode of Our Future Now!, hosts Natalie Mebane and Jonah Gottlieb speak with UC Berkely Professor Kent Lightfoot, who studies how humans have interacted with fire throughout history. Though climate change has worsened fire season across the western United States, Professor Lightfoot explains how fire suppression policies enacted by colonists has brought us to where we are today and why reviving Indigenous burning practices and changing attitudes about fire needs to be part of the solution.

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In this episode of Our Future Now!, hosts Natalie Mebane and Jonah Gottlieb speak with UC Berkely Professor Kent Lightfoot, who studies how humans have interacted with fire throughout history. Though climate change has worsened fire season across the western United States, Professor Lightfoot explains how fire suppression policies enacted by colonists has brought us to where we are today and why reviving Indigenous burning practices and changing attitudes about fire needs to be part of the solution.

Visit vote4ourfuture.org to learn more about how Zero Hour and the National Children’s Campaign are galvanizing Americans to vote on behalf of our nation’s 74 million children, who deserve bold climate action and environmental justice.

This episode of Our Future Now! was produced and edited by Goal17Media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

Check out how the Karuk Tribe is using burning as part of their climate change adaptation plan.

Find out which Native Nation’s land you’re living on.

Learn more about Julie Oliver, the progressive congressional candidate running to flip Texas’ 25th District, by visiting her website and/or watching her new campaign video, in which she talks about how experiencing homelessness as a child led her to where she is today.

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Get involved with the National Children’s Campaign

Jonah Gottlieb: is produced by Goal 17 Media storytellers for the common good.

Natalie Mebane: Hi, I’m Natalie

Jonah Gottlieb: And I’m Jonah Gottlieb. We’re co-founders of the National Children’s Campaign. Welcome to this episode of Our Future Now.

Natalie Mebane: Jonah forest fires are still raging in parts of California and October is historically the worst month for fire season. Now there’s a quote from Jackie Fielder, who is an Indigenous organizer and candidate for state Senate in California. That I feel really does a good job summing up how we got to this moment.

So Jackie Fielder said, “Climate change is much to blame for the flammability of California, but the truth is our problem goes way back, even before the introduction of the combustion engine.”

Jonah Gottlieb: Absolutely. So fire is just a natural part of the ecosystem in the West. It’s just, you know, part of…same as rain. Like, you wouldn’t try and prevent it from raining. You learn how to deal with it when it starts raining. And so a lot of the disastrous fires that we’ve seen in recent years are because of how we live with the land and our relationship to the place that we live in.

And so today we’re joined by one of my professors at UC Berkeley, Kent Lightfoot, who studies how humans have interacted with fire throughout history, especially Indigenous communities. Professor Lightfoot, welcome to Our Future Now.

Professor Kent Lightfoot: It’s great to be here. Thanks, Jonah.

Natalie Mebane: Nice to meet you, Professor Lightfoot. We’re really happy to have you with us. So as folks know, I’m from the East Coast, right? I’m from Silver Spring, Maryland. Where I live, it’s not a place that has fire season. It’s not a place that has fires. And so it’s really odd sometimes when you think about there’s an entire large section of the country that does not go through what you and Jonah go through every single year, all the time.

And you know, a year, two years ago, right now, this week I was working on the Katie Porter campaign. So I was in Orange County, California, and the first time I experienced the Santa Ana Winds…They started within a few days after I arrived, and everyone told me about them. Everybody described it, but I could not really understand it until I experienced them. And for the first time in my life, I remember laying awake at night in Irvine, California, hearing the winds, howl, and being terrified that there could be a single spark. And that sort of anxiety, terror, and feeling of uncertainty and lack of control, there’s no way to describe it. You just…I had never felt that in my life, and I know that you and Jonah have been going through that for years.

So I’m really curious to hear, you know, what has fire season been like to you in recent years in all the years that you’ve lived in California? How do the recent years compare?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: You know, Natalie, I, uh, grew up here in California and, uh, was born in San Francisco. And then I grew up in the North Bay in Santa Rosa. And, uh, as a kid, we did have fires. You know, and I do remember, uh, back in 64 in Santa Rosa, there was a major fire, uh, that, uh, we had, uh, uh, large van and the entire family was all set and we were ready to evacuate. But for the most part, there weren’t all that many fires. And it wasn’t anything that I really gave that much thought to. And in fact, the months of September and October used to be my favorite months. But within the last few years, like many people in California, uh, I’m starting to dread as soon as we move into September and October. And quite frankly, the fire season is, uh, becoming longer and longer.

And yeah, what happens, as you experienced is that, uh, we have a really, uh, oftentimes, uh, fairly hot weather. We oftentimes are going through droughts. And I think the number of droughts and the intensity of droughts are increasing, uh, what happens is those winds, which come out of the great basin are dry and they’re a hot, and sometimes they can gust up to 50, 60 miles an hour. And you’ve got a lot of fuel, and you get the ignition, and you get these fires and you get the winds blowing.

It’s a disaster. And that is what we’ve experienced over the last few years.

Jonah Gottlieb: You know, you make a point that you saw, you know, some examples of fire when you were younger, but really we’ve seen this dramatic increase, you know, in large part due to the climate crisis in recent years. But the truth is that as Natalie alluded to with Jackie Fielder’s quote, this crisis didn’t start with climate change. So how did we get here in terms of the issues that we’re seeing with land management right now?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: You bet… A great question and a great point, I think made by Jackie. Um, you know, climate change is part of it. I mean, there’s no question about it, but I think one of the real crucial issues is just how we have really, in many ways, uh, dealt with fire, especially over the last century, and the whole policy of fire suppression, something that began back in colonial times. You know, prior to this, uh, where you had Indigenous burning, which I think we’ll talk about here in a moment, you know, I think things were in a very different state.

But as soon as you get a European colonialism, uh, they began to, uh, try to stop cultural burning or Native peoples from burning. And the key reason is as these were big agricultural assessed systems, they were, uh, basically agricultural economies that were based on free range, livestock, thousands of heads that were out in the surrounding area. And they were of course planting, uh, many, many acres. Uh, various crops. And as a consequence of that, the last thing they wanted were fires that they did not control.

And so beginning in 1793, the Spanish government, uh, made, uh, an official law of the land to stop cultural burning, that is to have Native peoples out there doing any of these traditional, uh, economic practices that they’ve been doing for centuries. Uh, and that’s really what began this, this, uh, what would we think of as fire prohibition and you know, where they’re trying to stop fires.

But… where I think we really have the problem… It’s with the American period. You know, for example, in the 1890s, the United States military was patrolling, uh, parts of the, uh, Sierra, Nevada, what are now you, somebody in Sequoia National Park, uh, to protect those areas from fires and from Indigenous burning. And with the creation of the United States Forest Service,

this is where you really see fire suppression take place. 1905…the first forest chief Gifford Pinchot really began to push fire suppression, the idea being is that we put out any fires in the state of California as early as you can. And of course, Smokey the Bear developed in the 1940’s, you know, “and only you can prevent forest fires,” extremely popular and successful PR.

Uh, and so the idea was fire is bad. Fires need to be put out. And there’s no question that we still need that fire suppression, uh, going on, that is when we have these meetings or fires, but the issue is just how we’ve dealt with fires and maybe rethinking how we deal with them. And so this is, I think really, uh, the crux of the problem.

Natalie Mebane: You know, you mentioned earlier, you said something about how Indigenous people, you know, managed the land, managed fires. And that essentially the big turning point in California was when colonialism took hold, when suddenly the knowledge that had been passed on and the idea of fire is not bad– it’s just a part of the environment, was not understood. And you also said that it was suppressed to protect crops, to protect the essentially capitalism, to protect, uh, you know, colonialists coming in raising crops to make money.

And that the idea of losing these crops and changing the land use was, was going to be devastating.

And so a question for you is how did you know the original people of California, the Indigenous people, manage the lands with fire? What exactly were they doing differently in pre-colonial times?

Professor Lightfoot: You know, there’s a long tradition of Native peoples, you know, tending the land, working the land here in California. And there were various ways in which they did that. But the key way they did it was through fire. And so they, they talk about this as good fire, you know, whereas we think of those, all fires are bad. Uh, I think many Native peoples, both in the past, but definitely today with our contemporary Native communities today, uh, look at fire as being beneficial in some context.

And there are many reasons why they burn, but most importantly, to really augment the diversity, quantity of economic plants and animals in their territories. And what they would do as they burn small patches. And it would engrave, we increased the local biodiversity. Uh, and what you could do is by controlling the burning frequency of an area, you can in many ways control the kinds of plants that are there. And that is I think, what, what, uh, many of our Native societies were strategically and very skillfully we’re doing, uh, in the past and would like to, I’ll add right now, would love to do that again right now.

Jonah Gottlieb: So the last point you made that they would love to do that again right now is kind of the perfect transition, because there are many, many Native people and Native groups right now that are looking into how can we adapt these practices that they’ve been engaging in since time immemorial to make them part of our ecosystem today.

And so I know that for example, the Karuk Tribe, um, with their, uh, climate adaption plan is a great example of that. Um, I’m wondering, just kind of your take on these policies and how we can adapt them?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: Well, I think, yeah, I think it’s something that is a really, I think, a necessary, a component of the solution with dealing with fires in California that is to get to the tribes involved. And if, as you well know, I mean, we work with some of the local tribes here and so there’s I think a lot of good baseline data that can be employed working closely with tribes and with their own oral traditions, their own oral histories of their understanding of burning, and really begin to think about the future about how maybe some of these, uh, traditional ecological practices might be employed today in a very strategic way.

Natalie Mebane: So Kent, we were talking about how it used to be done, right? But we know that California today looks, you know, demographically, nothing like it used to. There’s significantly more people, huge cities that you can’t evacuate, you can’t move, you can’t you know, destroy.

How would this work? In today’s modern world, because I think ideally of course we would love to still burn the acreage needed to prevent these devastating fires, but at the same time, I’m pretty sure there’s homes, there’s cities, there’s businesses in the way. So what, what can…do in terms of the state government or federal government too, to burn properly, but without actually harming people in the process?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: You bet, Natalie…a great, great question. I think most of the tribes, you know, they’re not trying to, to recreate, you know, how things were 500 years ago or god, even a century ago. I mean, this is a very different world as you’ve pointed out. So there’s a lot of challenges and a key challenge of course, is burning, you know, getting permission to burn.

Uh, we have air regulations, we have a series of environmental regulations and also there’s, you know, liability issues, uh, burning near, uh, housing developments. And a lot of these housing developments have, you know, gone out into, uh, wild lands and you have, uh, uh, many lawyers that you’re probably right, you know, be uh, dealing with.

But I think what we want to do is kind of step back from that. You know, what I find fascinating is where we’ve done our equal archeological work in many ways, cases, what used to be open prairies, grasslands, are now conifer forests, teaming with all sorts of shrubs and really dense fuel. And yeah, if you go in there and try to just burn that right off the bat, and if it’s near a housing development, you’re, you’re gonna run into possible problems in terms of just the fire itself.

But there are a number of ways to, to reduce fuel, uh, manually. Also there’s mechanized methods. And oftentimes by getting the fuel down in some of these areas, you can make it so that you can begin to do some limited burning. The idea being is once you start getting some of these fuel loads down and beginning to do some burning, then you can begin to develop a pattern of doing that. And I think that that’s really in many of these areas is probably the way to look at this. It’s not going to take place overnight, and I think that, you know, it’s something that it’s not one and done. It’s something that’s going to have to be maintained.

Jonah Gottlieb: Kent, you took the words right out of my mouth, ‘cause I was just about to say that. The biggest takeaway that I’ve gotten from your class has been that you can’t just, you know, do anything one time and isn’t that Native peoples were able to live so well within their environment was because they were tending to it all the time… it was really symbiotic. And so I think that moving forward we actually have to be taking care of the land if we want it to take care of us…And I think that as you very correctly put the best way to do that is to just listen to the Indigenous people who are doing that now and have been doing it since time immemorial.

And so as Natalie alluded to at the top of the show, Jackie Fielder, the state Senate candidate, has a proposal that I think we’ve mentioned in a previous episode to create an Indigenous wildfire task force that would incorporate Indigenous knowledge, uh, alongside firefighters and climate scientists and other land management experts and such to come up with a plan for California to essentially accomplish the goal of the class that you teach, that I take, which is incorporating these practices into how we live with fire today. Um, I’m just wondering your thoughts on just, you know, how we can achieve that in California? And then also how we can achieve that nationwide?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: Well, I think it’s a fantastic, uh, proposal that, uh, Jackie is putting forth and one that we should very, very seriously look at and hopefully fund. What I think would be great if we could integrate, you know, the Indigenous burning with some of this larger scale burning so that we can actually begin to think about particular areas and particular resources, particular kinds of plants and animals that we really want to bring back and have those tribes involved with that.

Natalie Mebane: And just as a quick thing, Kent, I know you’re focusing on sort of California fires in particular, right? But would you say that this applies to all the other areas, especially out West, that we’re seeing that have fires does this same sort of method of, um, having the control burns with, would that work outside of California? Is that sort of the traditional method of dealing with it and other states as well?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: So, yeah, it depends on the, um, ecology in a particular state that you’re, you’re talking about. But what’s interesting, um, for example, in anthropology just some years ago, Omer Stewart did a study of Indigenous burning, cultural burning, and he found it, I mean, throughout Western North America. And in fact, throughout North America, there’s really good evidence that Native peoples, one of the key ways they stewarded the land was fire. And so I think, yes, and it would probably be a, um, you know, depending upon the state and the ecology, you know, the elevation, you know, there would probably be a different models of burning that would be employed in different ways. You might develop that strategy that would have to be, I think, really tailored to that specific local place, but yes, I do think that this is something that could be adapted and developed throughout certainly the Western North America, where we’re having all the problems with fires. Yeah, great point, Natalie.

Jonah Gottlieb: I just want to ask you, um, and I believe this was on my midterm a couple of weeks ago, um, but just for our listeners, what is kind of the capitol in the U.S. of light burning, so where they do a lot of prescribed burning?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: Yeah, it’s interesting. So, uh, it’s down in the Southeast, Florida and especially Georgia, some of those Southern States where they do a lot of burning. And given the amount of prescribed burning that takes place down there, the people have adapted to it. And I have learned to live with it and it keep the fuel load down. And while they still have some, you know, fires down there while there certainly are not having the problems we’re having here in the Western United States, uh, and California in particular.

Jonah Gottlieb: I think that that’s a really interesting point because it’s also, it shows that the bad habits that we’ve learned at West. Can be unmarked and that it’s just a matter of education and shifting the perspective and shifting the culture. And so if we can invest, you know, take that Smokey the Bear federal funding, and move it towards educating people about controlling and living with fire, then we can do a lot of good and make a lot of really great changes.

Professor Kent Lightfoot: I agree. I agree.

Natalie Mebane: Kent, I’ve learned a lot just from this short interview…As I told you fires is not something that I think about so much in my own day to day life, and so I think it’s something that we have to sort of educate everyone on across the country, across the world, that this is how ecosystems are built and that not every ecosystem is the same and that we should actually manage it the way that it’s supposed to be. And so from you, I’m just really wondering any final thoughts from you, for our listeners or anything else that you think that you would want them to take away from today?

Professor Kent Lightfoot: Well, I just think that, um, we’re going to need to start thinking about a core people who are actually involved in essentially tending the land. And in many ways, really doing some of this work that gets to fuel low down so that we can really begin to live a little bit, breathe a little easier in September and October and November.

Jonah Gottlieb: Kent, Professor Lightfoot, thank you so much for being on this week. It’s been a pleasure having you here.

Professor Kent Lightfoot: Oh, it’s really great to see you, John, and great to have you in class. And it’s just really fabulous to have me here on the, on the show and the interview. I really, really appreciate it.

Natalie: Thank you for listening to this episode of Our Future Now.

Jonah Gottlieb: If you’re interested in learning more about this subject, you can check out the amazing work that the Karuk Tribe is doing. They’ve released their climate adaption plan. You can read the plan and watch the video they’ve made about it by clicking the link in the description of this episode.

To find out which Native Nations’ land you’re living on, you can go to Native hyphen land dot ca.

Natalie Mebane: Our spotlight this week is Julie Oliver, a healthcare advocate and formally homeless teenager, whose running for Congress in Texas’s 25th congressional district.

Julie is running a bold campaign for Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, a pathway to citizenship, and an economy that works for everyone, not just the corporations and the wealthy few. She’s running in a flippable Republican seat and needs all hands on deck to bring progressive leadership to Congress.

She’s also got a great new campaign ad that highlights her story and why she’s in this fight that’s linked into description to this episode. you can check her out and see how to get involved at julie oliver dot org.

Jonah Gottlieb: Our Future Now is produced by Goal 17 Media. Our media partner is Parentology. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform and share this episode with your family and friends on social media. I’m Jonah Gottlieb.

Natalie Mebane: And I’m Natalie Mebane.

Jonah Gottlieb: And this is Our Future Now.