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Paper short abstract:

Social relationships, as much as ecological relationships, produce the forms of fire that emerge in landscapes. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork at three prescribed burn sites in California, I examine how communities use fire to negotiate relationships with landscapes, colonialism, and the state.

Paper long abstract:

Social relationships, as much as ecological relationships, produce the forms of fire that emerge in landscapes. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork at three prescribed burn sites in California, I examine how communities use fire to negotiate relationships with landscapes, colonialism, and the state. Before colonization, Indigenous peoples in California burned approximately ten million acres per year, enough to provide flames to every fire-adapted ecosystem in cycles of twenty years. These fires were integral parts of Indigenous economies and food systems. The suppression of fire, therefore, was central to European colonial efforts in California. Indigenous burning was originally criminalized by the first Spanish governor of Alta California in 1793. Fifty-three years later, when California became part of the United States, the first state legislature substantiated this criminalization as part of Indigenous genocide. Throughout the 20th century, the United States Forest Service formalized and enforced these colonial lines of fire exclusion with the weight of the federal government. Today, the state of California recognizes that ecologically appropriate burns can make forests more resilient to climate change and reduce wildfire hazards. This recognition has resulted in a state goal of treating one million acres of public land per year. Yet, even as public officials invoke Indigenous fire histories to justify state goals, many communities fear that Indigenous fire knowledge is being extracted, appropriated, and commodified to maintain and strengthen colonial structures in California society. This work shows how diverse communities in California use fire to negotiate relationships between themselves, landscapes, colonialism, and the state.