Northern Chumash tribe holds first SLO County cultural burn in generations. ‘Like coming residence’

On a heat, windless morning, members of the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe carried a candle-like flame up a hill in San Luis Obispo.

Slowly, ytt Tribal Chair Mona Olivas Tucker dipped a rope of braided, dried tule within the flame, then lowered the fireplace onto a mound of parched grass.

As the fireplace popped and crackled to life, the assembled ytt Tribe cheered — celebrating the primary time in generations they might return tinɨtʸu, or “good fireplace,” to their ancestral land.

“It actually felt like coming residence,” cultural burn practitioner Becca Lucas instructed The Tribune throughout the occasion Tuesday morning, which occurred on 15 acres of the Johnson Ranch Open Space in San Luis Obispo.

Cal Hearth, San Luis Obispo Metropolis Hearth and different SLO metropolis departments helped coordinate and implement the burn.

For months, the ytt Tribe and the town ready the land for the burn — harvesting native purple needlegrass seeds, accumulating burn supplies and hacking away brush to stop the fireplace from spreading too quick.

The burn will take away invasive vegetation and cut back wildfire threat, whereas revitalizing native vegetation and restoring a cultural observe, Lucas stated.

“Our households are the stewards of this land,” ytt Tribe cultural burn practitioner Kelsey Shaffer instructed The Tribune. “We may help heal the land, and the land heals us within the course of.”

SLO companions with ytt Tribe for cultural burn

Historically, the ytt Tribe burned land periodically to return vitamins to the soil and promote wholesome plant development.

These fires have been smaller and cooler than the large wildfires which have charred California throughout the previous decade, Shaffer stated.

“They have been extra manageable and simply much less harmful,” she stated. “A completely totally different form of fireplace that doesn’t scorch the earth or the seed financial institution.”

Different Indigenous peoples in California additionally used fireplace as a land administration device.

Between prescribed burns and lightning strikes, 5 million to 13 million acres of land was believed to have burned annually in prehistoric California, in keeping with a 1992 report by ecologists Robert Martin and David Sapsis.

In 2020, throughout California’s worst fireplace yr on document, 4.3 million acres burned within the state, Cal Hearth reported — far lower than prehistoric fireplace ranges.

“It’s fairly eye-opening for what this land truly wants and what it’s not getting,” Lucas stated.

As settlers poured into California throughout the Gold Rush, the California State Legislature handed legal guidelines to dam Indigenous peoples from training their traditions — reminiscent of banning intentional burns in 1850 with the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.

Although California does now enable prescribed burns as a way of wildfire administration, with out entry to the land, the ytt Tribe has had no strategy to conduct cultural burns for generations.

“There are such a lot of conventional practices we couldn’t observe on our personal with out permission to entry land, with out permission from somebody to do one thing,” Shaffer stated.

About two years in the past, San Luis Obispo up to date its Climate Adaption Safety Element to incorporate the ytt Tribe as a advisor for vegetation administration, Lucas stated.

The town, Cal Hearth and the ytt Tribe began planning the cultural burn in the beginning of this yr. The ytt Tribe led the planning efforts, whereas the town and Cal Hearth offered extra security assist.

“Tribes must be consulted for quite a lot of causes for quite a lot of issues, however don’t at all times get listened to,” Lucas stated. “To be able the place they’re like — you’re the specialists in your homeland, on this observe, on what you’re doing, we’re listening to you, we’re trusting you, we’re respecting you — is large.”

Shifting ahead, metropolis employees hope to be taught from the ytt Tribe and apply their conventional ecological data to the administration of different open areas, biologist Freddy Otte instructed The Tribune.

How did ytt Tribe, SLO metropolis conduct cultural burn?

Whereas Cal Hearth makes use of gasoline and diesel to gasoline its prescribed burns, the ytt Tribe ignited their fireplace with pure supplies collected on the Johnson Ranch Open Area.

“If we wish issues to develop again wholesome, we don’t need to poison the soil,” Shaffer stated, noting that after they ran out of pure supplies Tuesday, they did use a small quantity of gasoline and diesel to assist end the burn.

Their main burning device, nevertheless, was a hearth torch, which is an oak department topped with dried grass and tule leaves, pine needles, lichen and moss. On the heart of the torch have been pine cones doused in sap and rolled in grass.

Purple needlegrass and different native bunch grasses developed to resist fireplace, as they’ve deep root techniques that survive low-intensity burns, Shaffer stated. Invasive annual grasses, nevertheless, die every summer time.

A low-intensity, prescribed fireplace will burn away the non-native grass seeds, whereas the dormant, native vegetation will survive the fireplace and bloom once more within the fall.

After this burn, the ytt Tribe raked the ash into the soil. If the ash is left on the bottom, it traps warmth within the soil — baking the seed banks and stopping the vegetation from rising again, Shaffer stated. Raking the soil releases among the warmth and massages vitamins from the burned vegetation again into the land.

The ytt Tribe sprinkled purple needlegrass seeds on the burn scar to encourage their development, too.

In contrast to Cal Hearth, the company that normally performs prescribed burns, the ytt Tribe will proceed to observe this 15-acre plot of land to guage how every plant reacted to the burn.

“We don’t simply stroll away afterwards and say, ‘Nicely, good luck, little seedlings,’” Shaffer stated.

If the invasive grasses return, the ytt Tribe will burn the land once more.

“We now have to be versatile and hearken to what the land is saying,” Shaffer stated. “Watch it — what’s it exhibiting us that it wants?”

Shaffer famous that the ytt Tribe lives by the phrase, “qhinɨwana wa qtoʔ,” which implies, “to know is to be accountable.” They think about themselves stewards answerable for the well being of the land, she stated.

“We aren’t separate from nature, we’re part of nature, and we now have an excellent massive accountability,” Shaffer stated. “All people, we’re known as to be stewards, we’re known as to know higher. We should always know the way our actions impression our land and our water and the ecosystem and the habitat.”

The extra typically the ytt Tribe treats the land with prescribed fireplace, the extra manageable the burns will change into, she added.

“We could have hotter fireplace to start with,” Shaffer stated. “However over time and with constant fireplace, it’s not going to burn so sizzling, it’s not going to burn so excessive, it’s not going to burn to this point and broad, as a result of the land can be used to it. It will likely be pleased with its fireplace.”

Within the fall, the ytt Tribe hopes to burn beneath an oak tree cover on the identical property.

Oak seedlings don’t like shade, so it’s necessary to make use of fireplace to clear brush beneath the timber so the seedlings get sufficient daylight to develop, Lucas stated.

Lucas pointed to an space by the creek the place coastal sage brush mingled with poison oak and delicate, pale pink flowers known as morning glories. Stands of purple needlegrass swayed within the breeze close by.

“Right here’s what we wish: the entire issues simply rising collectively,” Lucas stated. “These will change into more healthy over time.”