Seeing is believing. I was lucky enough to be invited to a cultural fire Tribal training event in October of 2019, the Klamath Training Exchange (Klamath TREX).
According the the Mid Klamath Watershed Council, historically, the western Klamath Mountains experienced fires every 3 to 10 years. Fire suppression over the last 100 years and the prohibition of traditional Tribal burning has resulted in a huge fire deficit in our region. The use of prescribed fire may be the only viable long-term method for protecting our communities. Fire needs to be restored to the landscape for multiple other reasons as well: including for cultural resources, wildlife habitat, and general ecological functionality.
MKWC, through the Orleans/Somes Bar Fire Safe Council (OSBFSC) is facilitating collaborative strategic restoration planning and hazardous fuels reduction throughout our community. Our five-year strategic plan calls for the use of prescribed broadcast burning as a cost efficient tool for reducing hazardous fuels on pre-treated private lands, and for maintaining these treated areas over time.
Returning fire to public land is even more critical, since this comprises 95% of the property in this region. To that end MKWC is a key player in the collaborative Western Klamath Restoration Partnership (WKRP) which seeks to return fire to the wider landscape. WKRP is a community-based partnership working towards building trust and a shared vision to create fire-adapted communities, and to use traditional ecological knowledge and western science to restore fire regimes and re-create resilient biodiverse forests.
The return to #GoodFire as taught by Klamath River tribes has received a lot of media coverage, but also the frustration over megafires when better management was available: The Guardian, Fire Adapted Communities, UC Berkeley collaborative news round-up, Siskiyou Daily News on transmission line fire dangers, Daily Kos, The Nature Conservancy, The San Francisco Chronicle–fire is a ‘vaccine for our land,’ SF Chronicle–Bill Tripp, Bay Nature, and an interview with Frank Lake by California Native Plant Society.
Frank Lake over a long-term research study reported in 2018 by the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, found that Smoke generated by wildfires can cool river and stream water temperatures by reducing solar radiation and cooling air temperatures, according to a new study in California’s Klamath River Basin.
A paper titled, Wildfire Smoke Cools Summer River and Stream Water Temperatures, in the journal “Water Resources Research” suggests that smoke-induced cooling has the potential to benefit aquatic species that require cool water to survive because high summer water temperatures are a major factor contributing to population declines, and wildfires are more likely to occur during the warmest and driest time of year.
Native American tribes and other entities measuring river water temperatures in the Klamath Basin had previously noticed drops in river temperatures during periods of heavy smoke, but this is the first study to demonstrate this phenomenon with rigorous statistical analysis of long-term datasets.
“Prior to modern fire suppression, wildfires burned extensively throughout much of the Western United States, and smoke from these fires may have naturally cooled water temperatures during the summer when temperatures are hottest.”
FRANK LAKE, RESEARCH ECOLOGIST WITH THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE’S PACIFIC SOUTHWEST RESEARCH STATION
Bill Tripp, deputy director of the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources, says this research provides a great example of how traditional ecological knowledge is used to focus a refined view under the western scientific framework and better understand the specific functions these processes provide.
“The ecological principles explored here are in no way new. In fact, there are cultural burning practices associated with Karuk World Renewal Ceremonies specifically for the purpose of ‘calling in the salmon’ that are directly connected to these factors.”
BILL TRIPP, KARUK TRIBE
In other words, tribal cultural fire management in cooperation with local communities and agencies could be the better, more ecological and climate-friendly answer to make healthy soils, reduce wildfire fuels, sequester Carbon, and restore salmonid streams and watersheds, instead of commercial livestock grazing. We should look towards working with tribal partners to restore coastal prairies and other fire-adapted native plant communities, and salmon and trout habitat, including at Point Reyes National Seashore, in order to bring back #GoodFire, and lessen the need for ubiquitous livestock grazing.
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