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Land Management: Fire Ecology
Text by Ray Esquierio

Fire has been a tool of humanity since the dawn of time. It has been feared, revered, and worshiped. Because of its raw power to consume and destroy nearly everything in its path, humans continue to fear its impact on human society and the environment. Wild fires are considered one of the most dangerous natural disasters, next to earthquakes and floods, in California. However, recent research has uncovered fires usefulness for managing chaparral growth and controlling wild fires (Bean & Lawton 1993: 38).

According to primary sources taken from the first explorers of California, Natives were using fire to manage both plant and animal resources for food and material items. In 1792, the naturalist Jose Longinos Martinez wrote that all of California’s “gentiles” (from Alta and Baja) used fire to burn brush for hunting and to clear valleys in order to promote new growth in which they used as highly valued greens (Bean & Lawton 1993: 39). During the mission period, fires were set so frequently that Spanish, and then Mexican, officials made it against the law for Indians to burn the land (Blackburn & Anderson 1993: 129-32).

Europeans and Indigenous people had conflicting cultures and world-view’s which did not see eye to eye when it came to fire. Native people had lived in California for a long time developing their land management skills through trial and error. They passed on this style of managing natural resources to countless generations. Europeans were used to plowing and working the soil in order to produce food, and fire was used in war and destruction when it was set to open areas. Natives used fire to promote the growth of grasses used for baskets as well as other plants used for food (Bean & Lawton 1993: 38);(Ortiz 1993: 203-4). While Europeans saw the open California valleys as pastoral land available for grazing their animals, Natives saw these new animals as eating their plant foods which they relied on to get them through the winter.

The plant communities of Coastal Sage Scrub and Chaparral required fires to clear away the old dry brush which, if left unchecked, could be fuel for a wild fire. Fire also had another benefit for the oak woodlands. The fires would rid the trees of any parasites, like weevils in the under growth and bark, which were harmful to the tree. Regular fires also cleared away the undergrowth to prevent serious damage to the trees from the intense heat of a fire with to much fuel. The Native people knew the consequences would be disastrous if an acorn crop failed, but with these practices, the natives controlled parasites, wild fire, and increased the acorn yield each year (McCarthy 1993: 221). The population was able to benefit from plants that had evolved to deal with mans use of fire by reproducing seeds rapidly after a fire (Bean & Lawton 1993: 38).

The leaders of the people along with the pupulem (a society of men with knowledge among the Takic speakers) controlled where and when to set fires according to the weather. They also performed rituals to insure the continuance of their way of life by controlling the weather, especially rain (McCarthy 1993: 225-6). Fire and rain worked together to transform the Natives land into bountiful fields for humans and the four leggeds like rabbits and deer which benefited from man’s ingenuity. Without the rains after a fire, the seeds would not germinate, and dangerous landslides could occur. The fires were started by the leaders in the fall when the lighter rains came to ensure the growth small vegetation before the harsher rains of winter ravaged the land.

California was not a wild or virgin land ready for development by a more civilized society. It was a well managed and highly productive land which even yielded a harvest in the worst of times. California’s Native population had the highest density of humans per square mile north of Mexico because its land was extremely productive and the people were ingenious landlords. California was made so by generation after generation of natives who took their role as caretakers of the land seriously because the continuance of their way of life depended on this knowledge of the environment.