“Fire is a tool left by the Creator to restore our environment and the health of our people,” said Azzuz, board secretary for the Cultural Fire Management Council, which promotes burning on ancestral Yurok lands. The tribes’ hunter-gatherer lifestyle was devastated by prohibitions on fire that tribes had used for thousands of years to spur growth of acorn-bearing trees, clear space for deer and spur hazel wood stems used for baskets. ![]() ![]() Dozens have died thousands of homes have been lost.īut to the Yurok, Karuk and Hupa in the mid-Klamath region, cultural burning is about reclaiming a way of life suppressed with the arrival of white settlers. Wildfires have blackened nearly 6,000 square miles (15,540 square kilometers) in California the past two years. Research increasingly confirms low-intensity burns can reduce the risk by consuming fire fuels. It was among many “cultural burns” allowed in recent years by state and federal agencies that had long banned them - a sign of evolving attitudes toward wildfire prevention.
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