Alarmed by Scope of Wildfires, Officials Turn to Native Americans for Help

LOS ANGELES — When Belinda Brown was a child, she would rise early in the morning every spring and fall to help her father and grandfather light the fields of the XL Ranch Indian reservation outside of Alturas, Calif. She would take a metal rake to the grasses and watch as flames spread.

“Fire was absolutely a part of what we did all the time,” she said. “It wasn’t a fearful thing.”

Long before California was California, Native Americans used fire to keep the lands where they lived healthy. That meant intentionally burning excess vegetation at regular intervals, during times of the year when the weather would keep blazes smaller and cooler than the destructive wildfires burning today.

The work requires a deep understanding of how winds would spread flames down a particular hillside or when lighting a fire in a forest would foster the growth of certain plants, and that knowledge has been passed down through ceremony and practice. But until recently, it has been mostly dismissed as unscientific.

Now, as more Americans are being forced to confront the realities of climate change, firefighting experts and policymakers are increasingly turning to fundamental ecological principles that have long guided Indigenous communities.

“I keep saying we’re getting that ‘I told you so’ award,” Ms. Brown, a member of the Kosealekte Band of the Ajumawi-Atsuge Nation in Northern California, said with a weary smile. “My prayer is that ignorance won’t stop us again.”