Living With Fire: What California Can Learn From Native Burns
Officials are beginning to reimagine fire and land management, drawing upon Native American tradition and perspectives that were long outlawed.
By Megan Botel
Ed Kashi/VII
The tribe’s spiritual leader, Keith Turner, begins burn day with a ceremony, blessing each member of the group with cleansing white sage.
MARIPOSA, Calif. ― Rain falls on the 300-year-old oaks on a cold midwinter morning as a group of nearly 60 gathers here on what was once southern Sierra Miwok land.
Some have returned year after year. Others are here for the first time, eager to learn what California’s oldest residents have long known about land management after the most destructive fire season in the state’s recorded history.