Good Fire II
(2024 version)
Current Barriers to the Expansion of Cultural Burning and Prescribed Fire in the United States and Recommended Solutions
BY: SARA A. CLARK, BILL TRIPP, DON L. HANKINS, COLLEEN E. ROSSIER, ABIGAIL VARNEY, AND ISOBEL NAIRN – FOR THE KARUK TRIBE
Download Executive Summary Here
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
We need significant revitalization of the relationships between fire, communities, and landscapes to address the wildfire crisis. Many Indigenous peoples still honor and maintain these relationships—their efforts must be fully enabled and supported, while many others must fundamentally change the way they talk and think about fire, enabling a paradigm shift in how fire restoration activities are regulated, planned, and implemented. To move forward, Indigenous knowledge, practice and belief systems must be valued, respected, and revered, and the sovereignty of Tribal governments and cultural fire practitioners must be acknowledged and access enabled. Additionally, Tribes and Indigenous people should be provided with resources to burn as they know how, within their lands of territorial affiliation.
In 2021, the Karuk Tribe commissioned the first Good Fire report (available below), which summarized the legal and policy underpinnings of barriers to expanding the scope of cultural burning and prescribed fire use in California, and made recommendations to address them. Since its release, Good Fire has been widely cited by academics, lawmakers, and private and public entities alike as a key resource informing efforts across the state to help advocate and create the enabling conditions for increased use of good fire.
Good Fire II takes the recommendations to a larger scale, calling for transformational change at both the state and federal levels, and providing a roadmap to revitalizing the relationship between humans and fire and the systems used to steward it. The report continues to prioritize reforms that will support cultural fire practitioners and community-based prescribed burners, based on the understanding that intimate knowledge of place is required for effective stewardship.
Good Fire II also follows the release of the Biden Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission’s final report, which includes recommendations to more effectively prevent, manage, and recover from wildfires. Good Fire II is intended to serve as a supplement to the Commission report, to be used as a tool for implementing the Commission recommendations in a manner that protects and respects Tribal sovereignty and prioritizes Tribal leadership at all levels of stewardship and fire management.
Good Fire I
(2021 version)
Current Barriers to the Expansion of Cultural Burning and Prescribed Fire in California and Recommended Solutions
BY: SARA A. CLARK, ANDREW MILLER, AND DON L. HANKINS – FOR THE KARUK TRIBE
karuk climate change projects 