Listen 37 min MORE The Woolsey Fire is seen from Hollywood Hills. The fire ignited in November 2018 and burned nearly 100,000 acres of land, according to the National Park Service. Photo by By Jeff Pinette/Shutterstock.
“California is a fire-prone landscape,” says Don Hankins, professor of geography and planning at California State University, Chico. But generations of Native Californians prevented disaster by controlled burning, which protected their villages and the environment they built.
Then the state government made it illegal for Native Californians to start a fire, watch a fire, or extinguish it. That’s according to Willie Pink, chairman of the Agua Caliente Tribe of Cupeno.