AMAH MUTSUN TRIBAL BAND REIGNITES CULTURAL BURNING
To prevent megafires and bring back native species, band wants to put fire back on landscape
DAVENPORT » The morning light lifts above Cascade Ranch in Davenport and scatters across a thick blanket of ash and charred metal pieces — remnants of a historic building burned in the CZU August Lightning Complex fire.
Eight Native Stewardship Corps, a conservation crew made up of Amah Mutsun Tribal Band members, gather in a circle. They all wear yellow fireresistant work uniforms and start the day with a prayer, asking for safety and protection. The crew is preparing to light a prescribed burn on Año Nuevo State Park grounds.
But long before California State Parks existed, long before Cascade Ranch was erected, the Mutsun peoples were lighting purposeful, methodical fires, across the Central California Coast.
“My ancestors were doing burns for thousands of years,” native steward Gabriel Pineida said. “They knew how to manage the land, they knew where to burn, and the right times when to burn.”
The Indigenous people of California practiced cul
tural burning for centuries to keep catastrophic megafires like the CZU Complex fire from igniting. The Mutsun peoples also lit these fires to manage the land, grow foods, medicines and materials.
Now, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band is working to put fire back on the landscape, to heal it.
The ancestors of the Tribal Band — the Awasas and the Mutsun- speaking peoples — lived across the greater Monterey Bay. They inhabited lands near Año Nuevo, west into the Santa Cruz Mountains, south in the Pajaro watershed, and east, in areas known today as San Benito and Santa
Clara counties.
The Awasas and the Mutsun-speaking peoples would divide landscapes in up to seven segments based on the different species of plants, trees, and animals, explained Valentin Lopez, the Amah Mustun Tribal Band chairman. Those Amah Mutsun ancestors would burn one swath of land per year, sparking low intensity fires.
“When you burn at that frequency you avoid a huge buildup of fuels, that become so dangerous when those fires burn, they burn hot and sterilize and kill everything around them,” Lopez said. “That’s what happened in the Santa
Cruz fires.”
Usually, flames don’t grow higher than a foot and a half in cultural burns and the fire moves slowly across the landscape. The practice creates a checkerboard of burned and unburned swaths of land, Lopez said. Indigenous burns prevent blazes from becoming disastrous and cultivate a more fire-resistant landscape.
Bringing fire back to where it once was
Pineida and his fellow Native Stewardship Corps members are not only trained in wildland firefighting, but also in forestry and plant ecology. They gear up for the day, putting on hardhats, grabbing goggles, and gathering hoes and shovels.
T he native stewards drive five minutes up Highway 1 to meet a California State Parks crew at Cascade Field, a coastal prairie north of Año Nuevo Point. Golden grass hisses and whips in the wind, as crews discuss burn plans.
This coastal prairie is one of the largest left untouched by farmers in Santa Cruz County, Tim Hyland said, a senior environmental scientist with California State Parks.
But centuries ago, grasslands were widespread throughout the Central California Coast.
“Because of the traditional ways of our people burning, the whole Central Coast of California was a coastal prairie, one of the most biodiverse landscapes in North America,” Chairman Lopez said.
Today, less than 1% of California’s native grasslands remain, according to the National Park Service. These prairies are hotbeds for endemic grasses, plants and animals.
“When our people stopped burning, that coastal prairie was quickly encroached on by shrubs and trees,” Lopez said. “The prairie is hard to find now, and that biodiversity is practically gone.”
The ancestors of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band endured three brutal waves of colonization.
From the late 1700s and into the 19th century the Indigenous people of California were forced off their lands and enslaved at missions and reservations. More than 16,000 Native Americans were killed in California during the mid 19th-century. Settlers also outlawed Indigenous burning.
First, Spanish colonists banned Indigenous peoples of California from the practice, because it impacted shrubs that cattle grazed on. But Indigenous peoples were still holding burns in some areas of the state, explained
Alec Apodaca, a UC Berkeley anthropology graduate student and researcher. In the early 1800s Mexican settlers also outlawed cultural burning. But it wasn’t until later in the 19th century when American settlers colonized California that the practice was completely removed from the landscape, Apodaca said.
“Fire exclusion became more integrated into policy over time,” according to Apodaca.
When American settlers began to view to the forest as a resource, for logging and recreation, the banning of Indigenous burning was finalized. Forests in areas like Santa Cruz County became overgrown.
“There’s been a disruption in the knowledge and the stewardship practices — that’s a byproduct of these colonial enterprises,” Apodaca said.
Reconnecting to cultural burning
That means some native stewards working this prescribed burn, are learning, too.
All crew members have wildland firefighting training, but for some, such as Natalie Pineida, it’s their first time lighting a prescribed burn.
Marcella Luna leads a line of firefighters with a drip torch. She’s a long-time fire practitioner. Other crew members follow behind, using hand tools to dig into the earth. Carefully, she rotates her wrist slightly, pouring liquid drops of fire from the canister onto the ground. Every 6 feet, a drop of fire. It accumulates to form a line.
“I’m always thankful to put fire on the ground,” Luna said.
Through working as a native steward, Luna said she’s able to connect more deeply with her heritage.
“We’re relearning our culture, tradition and learning how our ancestors took care of the lands,” she said.
After the prescribed burn is finished, the area will resemble farther stretches of the park, where the CZU Complex fire crept down, leaving blackened scorched earth. But grasslands are adapted to fire, says Don Hankins, a fire researcher and professor at Chico State.
When set methodically, and scientifically, prescribed fires control which species flourish, and which are exterminated. Indigenous burns maintain native plants, grasses and animals, and keep invasive species at bay, Hankins explained.
Cultural burning is also a spiritual practice. Practitioners take a holistic view of the land, analyzing how different grass, plant, shrub, tree or animal species are faring.
“Can I do something for that plant or animal by tweaking it in this way?” Hankins said. “And if I set fire at this time, it’s going to correct that and make it better.”
But, it’s all about timing. Burns done in summer versus fall encourage different types of species to grow. If done at the wrong time, the benefits can evaporate, according to Hankins.
“I worry that if we’re not using fire in the same lens, with the same purposes that this landscape has evolved with, then perhaps we’re just creating another problem,” Hankins said.
There’s been a reckoning within fire agencies over the last decade that to prevent devastating wildland fires, prescribed burns need to be set more frequently. But Hankins wants to see Indigenous peoples leading the movement to put fire back on the landscape.
“How do we all get on the same page?” Hankins asked. “And wouldn’t it be awesome if that same page was written by Indigenous practitioners to say, ‘this is what this landscape needs and this is how we’re going to achieve it.’”
Hankins said that would mean fire agencies working with local Indigenous communities on fire management plans, for example.
Native stewards look ahead
In the wake of the CZU Complex fire, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band is working on securing some essentials for the native stewards.
Their housing at Cascade Ranch was damaged in the blaze, so for now the conservation crew is staying at the Butano Creek Girl Scout Camp, through an emergency grant from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. Finding a permanent headquarters for the native stewards and housing is paramount, said Sara French, interim executive director of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust.
“Tribal members don’t have land, and don’t have financial support, and they live three or four hours away in the Central Valley, where it’s cheaper to live,” French said.
The native stewards are working to establish themselves as a crew that not only lights cultural burns, but also responds to wildland fires, and works prescribed burns, French said. The conservation crew is also working with California State Parks to down Douglas fir trees, and introduce native plants in the Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve, a part of Año Nuevo State Park that’s Tribal Band ancestral territory.
At Pie Ranch, the native stewards are cleaning and restoring parts of the property that were damaged in the CZU Complex fire. French said they’re hoping to contract with more private land owners in Santa Cruz County to do this type of work.
Although the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, which has approximately 600 enrolled members, is recognized by California as a tribal government, it does not currently have federal recognition. Through agreements with California State Parks and other agencies, the Mutsun peoples can access their ancestral lands for stewardship work and ceremony. But the Tribal Band does not officially hold any of their traditional territory.
For native stewards like Gabriele Pineida, it’s a far commute from Fresno to work in places such as Año Nuevo, 36 weeks of the year. But he says, it’s worth it. “Just being out here in the fresh air, away from the city, away from everybody, away from all the all the negativity, you’re out here being free,” Pineida said.
“This is where I belong.”