Cultural Fire

Cultural Fire

During the midst of California wildfire season, we explore the historical and cultural conditions that have led to increasingly destructive and severe wildfires in California. This is a story whose roots reach back 400 years, to the arrival of Europeans in California, and their categorical misinterpretation of what they were seeing in the woodlands all around them. We follow the course of a cultural understanding of fire-tending, as elucidated in part through the work of Kat Anderson, whose critical book Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources brought attention to the myriad ways in which California’s indigenous people (like Indigenous people everywhere) have been tending the land on which they lived always. Anderson’s book was made into a wonderful film series, one segment of which, Cultural Burning, delves into and expands up material presented here. We recommend to you also Robin Wall Kimmerer’s enlightening Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, for continued and deep perspective on the relationships between Indigenous communities and wild-tending. Please be aware: the video above is graphic in nature, and contains images of the California wildfires. The purpose of the video is to sharpen your attention and change the way you understand fire in the living world.