I was invited to give a keynote address at Chico State’s ‘This Way To Resilience’ Symposium. My talk was titled ‘Telling Better Stories Around the Camp Fire’. It was about how the stories we choose to tell and amplify shape our relationship with the places they are about.
Most of the stories we hear or tell about the 2018 Camp Fire revolve around victimhood and loss. In the aftermath of the fire, there remains widespread trauma and a general fear of fire, the villain of the collective memory. But fire doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
This story is about how the landscape attributes of Paradise and Concow set these places up for rare but inevitable episodes of extreme wildfire hazard. Many of the factors which influence this are knowable; becoming versed in the ways of wildfire is essential if people hope to safely dwell in fire’s domain.
Fire is the best teacher. Prescribed burning in giving people a safe environment in which to learn from it. In the process, many of us are healing our Camp Fire trauma, and making new stories.
If you enjoyed the first video, here is another story, from my friend Will Harling, recorded recently at a prescribed fire symposium in Sacramento.
If you’ve followed our work, you’ve probably heard about my friend and colleague, Will Harling, who is a leader in bringing community-based prescribed fire back to the Klamath River after a century of fire exclusion and criminalization of native burning by local tribes. Locals on the River have been through a lot of fire, and often know a lot more about how fire works in their landscape than do the firefighters who are brought in from near and far when large fires burn in the Klamath (this has happened almost every year between 2013 and now).
In this talk, Will shares lessons learned, successes, and failures, and his thoughts on how people in other rural, fire-prone areas of the country might adopt some of what they have learned in the Klamath country in the past two decades.
Summary
Will Harling discussed the restoration of fire ecology in the Klamath Basin through cultural burning and prescribed fire. He highlighted the success of the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership, which brought together diverse stakeholders to manage fire at the landscape scale. Harling emphasized the importance of shared values, such as sustainable economies and cultural vitality, in achieving collaboration. He shared examples of effective burn projects, including the Somes Bar and Orleans Valley initiatives, and the impact of fire exclusion on salmon populations. Harling also addressed the challenges of fire management, including smoke management and firefighter safety, and called for continued political will and community support to restore fire to the landscape.