Indigenous leaders and fire experts discuss cultural fire, demonstrate safe practices at Santa Rosa event

Seven-year-old Fire Frizzell crouched down next to some embers Sunday afternoon and added bits and pieces of wood to the smoking pile to make it grow.

As she continued to add sticks, she watched as the smoke grew and, under careful supervision, some small flickers began to appear.

Later, after she told her mom she had been “making a little fire,” she smiled.

Fire was one of a few people on Sunday who interacted with fire fuels and learned how to set small prescribed flames as part of the second day of the California Indian Basketweaver’s Association event “Rekindling Culture and Fire.”

During the two-day event, local tribal leaders, students, fire experts and professors gathered to talk about the importance of cultural fires, discuss basket weaving and watch and participate in a prescribed fire demonstration.

On Sunday, more than 50 attendees gathered at Heron Shadow, a portion of Native land under the purview of The Cultural Conservancy, to learn how to safely interact with fire and do prescribed burns.

After arriving, North Fork Mono Tribal Chairman Ron Goode led the group in prayer and talked about the role of fire in Indigenous culture.

“We have to continually work with the culture; our culture,” he said, referring to what attendees should be thinking about as they moved through the demonstration.

Then, the groups moved from piles of different materials, including twigs, and listened to representatives from Torchbearr, a Yreka-based nonprofit that teaches people how to safely conduct prescribed burns.

Some attendees, including Fire Frizzell, helped fuel the fires, either by feeding them with sticks or using small amounts of propane.

Even though it was raining, some of the fires were able to catch enough to demonstrate effective and safe prescribed fire practices, including pouring the propane near where the sticks intersect to ensure a fire catches more easily.

Alvin Rosa, a graduate student at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, said he attended the event because it aligns with his studies in geoarchaeology.

He said he loved participating Saturday in a collective discussion involving many different groups, including Indigenous tribal partners and conservation agencies, regarding Indigenous perspectives on sustainable environmental management.

“I want to see more of these events occur and wish the public keeps their ears open and invites Indigenous people to their spaces and create these partnerships,” he said. “It is valuable.”

Chase Whitener, a worker with WRA Landscape Restoration Inc., said he attended the event to learn the cultural context behind the ideas that created prescribed burning.

He said he wants to call attention to these older methods of cultural fires in the context of his landscape work.

Cultural fires are small, seasonal burns of selected plants that have connections to Indigenous practices, including burning plants that are used for basket weaving so that they grow straighter and stronger the next year, said CIBA office manager Windell Smith.

While there is some overlap in this definition with prescribed fires, such as those performed by local firefighting agencies that are meant to decrease fuels for larger fires, cultural fire is specifically an Indigenous practice.

Cultural fires are started and maintained in specific ways depending on the purpose of the fire, CIBA Chair Alice Lincoln-Cook said.

Some flames are sparked using sticks to create more smoke and remove bugs from willows or acorns. Others, such as those for hazel, are burned into the ground to help materials grow back with a stronger, thinner and better-quality material.

Lincoln-Cook said that for many years cultural burns were prohibited by state and federal entities and the lack of these burns has affected the quality of baskets that have been made in recent years.

She said you can see the difference in quality between a basket now and one made 60 years ago.

“The difference in the quality of it is huge,” she said. “It’s not because we don’t have quality basket weavers. It’s because we don’t have quality materials.”

Smith said burns this upcoming fire season will most likely be safer than they would have been in drier conditions.

“It gives the plant life a deeper drink, so they are not so desiccated and dry,” he said. “They are more resilient to fire.”

Warmer conditions have made it slightly riskier to conduct these kinds of burns because they require extensive preparation, including creating buffers around the area to be burned, and after the flames are out, Smith said.

Frizzell’s mother, Percilla Frizzell, said she brought her daughter and 5-year-old son to the event because she wanted them to learn how fire plays a role in their lives, the lives of their elders and in their culture.

“It’s that intergenerational relationship with fire and restoring our relationship as land stewards,” she said.

Mom said her daughter always says, “I love fire because I am fire.”

You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @madi.smals.