A Necessary Disturbance: Cultural Fire on Washoe Tribal Lands in Lake Tahoe

For centuries, the Washoe Tribe migrated seasonally between the Carson Valley and Lake Tahoe. Their presence on the land and cultural practices helped mitigate wildfire risk, as well as enhance wildlife and resilience to drought.

We interviewed Rhiana Jones, Interim Director of the Washoe Environmental Protection Department, and Washoe Tribal Council member Helen Fillmore. They helped to shed light on how the forced removal of Washoe people and their practices from the land has impacted ecosystems. They also discussed how the MÁYALA WÁTA Restoration Project aims to restore and preserve Meeks Meadow by integrating traditional knowledge and culturally guided burning practices into current land management strategies.

Transcript

Megan Kay: 0:19

Welcome to the living with fire Podcast, where we share stories and resources to help you live more safely with wildfire. Hi, I'm your host, Megan Kay and the outreach coordinator for the living fire program. And I'm joined by my boss Jamie rice gums. Hi, Jamie.

Jamie Roice-Gomes: 0:34

Hi, how's it going?

Megan Kay: 0:36

We're here today to talk about the episode you guys are about to listen to, which is an interview with Helen Fillmore and Brianna Jones, environmental specialists with the Washoe tribe. And we got to talk to them abou tcultural history of burning on Washoe lands and als ogot to talk to them about some great projects that they're working on right now up in Meeks Meadows in Tahoe. So Jamie, you, you, you weren't able to be on the interview. Because we got we got busy schedules, but you were able to listen to it. I just wanted to hear your take on it.

Jamie Roice-Gomes: 1:12

To be honest, I was I thought it was fascinating to learn from Helen Fillmore about what the the strongest evidence for fire and cultural learning was with the washer tribe and the elders, just how they, they cook the pine nuts, and in how they collect the pine nuts and, and how that's related. And it just really made me think of the importance of ,you know, finding out information from from previous generations like, what they did and how they did it. And, and I don't want to go into that and really kind of like spoil it for the audience, but and I'm gonna bring up an example that's completely unrelated, but kind of related. It just reminds me of like, you know, my friend's grandma used to put spearmint in her flower. And why did she do that? She did it because the mint and spearmint gum repels weevils. Don't really know that. And so it's really, it's really important to find out from previous generations, what they did, and why they did it, and then implement that into the habits and the thought process and the things that you do today. And it just, it it just resonated me. I know, it's not really related, but I just is is important.

Megan Kay: 2:41

Yeah, I that is something that I have not really thought much about either. And that really resonated with me and not to spoil it, because it's a great interview. And but yeah, the idea that just kind of, we've always interacted with the land and vegetation, whether it's harvesting, just existing on a land having to create fires to survive, and the impact that that has on the ecosystem. So it really got me thinking about just how humans interact with ecosystems and how we've always been doing that. Ever since humans were on the land and measuring that. And taking that in context is really important when you think about restoration. Because what are we trying to restore these ecosystems to? and humans have to be a part of that. Think that that logic and that that process? So that's a long winded intro to this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. And here's the interview.

Rhiana Jones: 4:01

My name is Rhiana Jones. I am environmental specialist to with the Washoe tribe of Nevada in California. I work for the Environmental Protection department

Helen Fillmore: 4:11

Dawatlaume dgum dya li. Helen Fillmore dabo tlu dgum dya li. Pwalu dtdei li. My name is Helen Fillmore. And I'm also an environmental specialist for the Washoe tribe. And I'm currently or I guess, recently, our fire Resilience Project Manager to try to restore and revitalize our cultural burning practices for our within our homelands, but specifically for our restoration projects.

Christina Restaino: 4:41

I'm Christina Restaino. I'm the director of this esteemed program on the faculty at UNR.

Megan Kay: 4:49

I'm Megan Kay, I'm the outreach coordinator for the living fire program at UNR. So before we dive into the topics of like the word, the work that you're doing, I wanted to Get to know you guys a little bit. So why don't we start with Rhiana? And do you mind giving, like letting us know how you got to be an environmental specialist.

Rhiana Jones: 5:10

I grew up in this area. I'm Washoe and Salt River Pima-Maricopa down from Arizona. And I grew up on the Hung A Lel Ti reservation. And I went to school in Northern California at Humboldt State for my undergrad, I have an undergraduate degree in botany. And both my parents were artists, I was really into nature and drawing. And so I was like, I'm going to go and learn all the parts of plants and be able to draw and really good and, you know, become a botanical Illustrator. But I, you know, that didn't happen, I went another direction, and just really got into the science of plants and botany and environmental science and conservation. And I went on to get my master's in New Mexico, and New Mexico State University. So I have a master's in plant and environmental science. There, I studied chili peppers, which was kind of another caveat from my plan. But after that, you know, I wanted to, to work for one of my tribes, or any indigenous tribe, really, to kind of take what I learned back to my community, and you know, help others, encourage others to go to school, the youth education was really heavily influenced in my family. And I think it's really important for people to, you know, leave their leave their hometown for a while and get out and see what's out there. And then be able to, you know, learn some stuff and bring it back to your community. So that was my plan. And, you know, I, there was an opportunity to work for the Environmental Protection department. And I've been here about a year and four months. So I'm the mix metal project manager, I work up with the restoration project for the maiella Water Restoration. And we're doing some, you know, COVID kind of stops and stuff, but we're doing some conifer thinning up there. And when we started doing groundwater monitoring, and we hope to have a scientific publication out of that. So I think, what I would like to see, and you know, why I'm passionate about working for the department is bringing a more, you know, scientific aspect to some of the work we're doing, there's, you know, a good cultural aspect, but I think, you know, mixing that with science as well, and in terms of getting it out into the public and, you know, being relevant in the scientific community is, is what I want to see and hope for, for this project, and the groundwater monitoring specifically, and the cultural burning Helen, so you can write a paper,

Helen Fillmore: 7:43

it's Goofy, I feel goofy sometimes talking about this, I guess, like how I got passionate about this work. But when I was younger, we had a Washiw language immersion school where we were taught by our elders, and it's one of those like one one room schoolhouses kind of a situation where there was only 20 of us. Or so I'm not exactly sure this the whole number, what not, but, um, at the Washiw language immersion school, we took, you know, we were taught everything in our language, from our elders, and then for our science classes, we got to learn from like experts in the field, because we would take these field trips up to mix meadow, my ahlawat, that's what we call it, and up to Tahoe, kind of throughout our homelands. And they would, the way that they kind of arranged it was that, you know, we would talk to that foresters are talked to some of the head scientists, and they would give like these little bit of outreach, and at that time, it was really awesome, because we'd be learning from our elders kind of in preparation of those meetings or those like, like, on the ground experiences, and, you know, our elders would tell us kind of their version of it. And then it would be reinforced then by what the scientists were saying to and so it was kind of this really, you know, it was just this environmental science, ecology was just a discipline that really resonated with, like our cultural beliefs, our values, and things like that. And so I would say my passion start to started to develop at that early age. And then when I got into college, I took a environmental management course and my professor at that time was, he was really awesome. But the first half of the I was at the University of Washington in Seattle, and the first half of the class was kind of general management and things like that. And then the second half of the class is Tahoe is a case study. Because taho is one of the few areas in the world that's actually managed at the watershed level. And then it's, it's all these different memorandums of agreements between different states and jurisdictions and things like that. But he's It was not only that I realized, like, I can be in a discipline and study something that's really interesting. And that's really relevant to our culture. But then I can also study the areas that are specific to that are most important to me. And I can study them, you know, all the way in Seattle, way far away from home. So in so many ways, like environmental science kept me home. And I always knew, like I wanted to return back home. During that time, I was also working as a wildland firefighter out of Carson City, just as a quick way to make some good money and travel in the summertime, and to be outside and camping. And I really fell in love with that job. During that time, I was planning on kind of pursuing that as a career. But I, I decided, at some point that I made a pretty good firefighter, but that I'd make a really great something else. And so went back to school that my Master's in hydrology, and this position opened this was it, I guess, my, my interest has always been more into like research and kind of like what Rianna was saying as far as, like getting more into some of that height, like not higher, but getting more into some of the more technical, scientific research areas. But with the pandemic, I did really want to start getting more into implementation. And so took this job with the tribe. And yeah, I would say, you know, as far as like what keeps me excited, it's like working with people like Rianna everyday somebody who grew up in the area, who has like, all of the personal relationship and all of that, like cultural relationship that we kind of stemmed from, but then also has the other perspective, too, of like, you know, these are people that we can work with to really make this cultural relationship we have that much stronger. These are people who can support us in those ways. And so it's just been Yeah, I will say it's been. It's, it's really an honor to be working for, like your homelands and your community directly. And I am looking forward to what we can build here.

Megan Kay: 12:22

I like what you said too, about the you're a good wildland firefighter, but you would make a great something else. I think a lot of people if I share that as well with just like a little bit of wildland fire experiences like I think I'd be better at something else. The you guys touched on it earlier when you were talking about Markleville and the reservation, but do you just for folks, listeners who don't know we're Washoe tribal lands are Rhiana or Helen? Would you guys mind just giving a quick overview of the of the tribal lands and also specifically just the projects where the projects are located that you guys are working on?

Helen Fillmore: 13:01

Oh, yes. So Da ow a ga Tahoe. is the center of our homelands and our homelands really kind of extend out from there up into the north and testers and build down south by Mono Lake. And then kind of just definitely on the like Eastern Sierra foothills, and then on the side up into the pinenut hills, the western side up into the pinenut hills, and so we have both kind of like those Sierra Nevada ecosystems, and then those Great Basin ecosystems as well. Um, where we're located currently, our headquarters is in Gardnerville, Nevada, we've our reservation lands are very small compared to our you know, our traditional territories. We have four communities one located in hung a lel ti, in woodfords, California Markleeville area, then one in gardnerville, and two in Carson City. And that's where the I guess, about half of our tribal members reside within those four communities. The other half live off reservation but the significant majority of our authorization tribal members live within the area, like Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, kind of still like in those those like regular boundaries, um, and then our project so our projects are kind of tricky because we, most of our specific projects are on reservation lands or that's what we're committed to is our, like our reservation lands or trust lands, but our biggest projects are on Forest Service land and on viia allotment lands. And so those are ones where we have to have like, more official agreements in place, and like what official funding to come in and so The big allotment lands. So those are our fire restoration projects and Romain Smokey the third. He's the one who's managing those projects. We're getting ready to replant. Tomorrow we're gonna start kicking off our spring planting. And then the maiella watershed project in the Tahoe Basin. We have a couple of acres within the Tahoe Basin that are tribal land, but the Milo what that project isn't tribal land, it's for service land, but it's our biggest restoration project. And yeah,

Megan Kay: 15:32

is that the I'm sorry, I creeped on you guys and read your letter, the Washoe Environmental Protection Department newsletter. Is that the what the the the project that's described in that newsletters at the the Mayala Wata or is that the Meekls Meadow? Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Unknown: 15:52

So I think Helen mentioned earlier Mayala Wata is the name for Meeks Creek. So we're calling that whole project that Meeks Meadow the Mayala Wata restoration project. So the Meeks Meadow and the Mayala Wata project are the same one. I'll pick up where Helen left off. Yes. So the main projects we are going now on now like she said, are in the Pinenut hills and Meeks Meadow but we received some funding through its tribal wildlife grant to do a resilience garden where we can be funded to grow our own culturally sensitive and native restoration plans for our own restoration projects. So we've talked about there's skunk harbor parcel up on Tahoe the incline parcel belongs to the Washoe tribe, is that accurate to say Helen? Okay, Olympic Valley, and then Meeks, Pinenuts, and there's also a Babbitt peak parcel. So all of these could potentially be sites for future restoration or, you know, fire prevention go and then the trees or the bushes and, you know, possibly plant some plants up there. But I'll talk a little bit about Meeks since that's my main project. So what we hope to do up there, you know, COVID stops and stuff but the plan with the Forest Service and through the stewardship agreement, and we have a lot of other funders like the National Fish and Wildlife, the California Tahoe Conservancy, Taho Fund, many, many people have contributed to this project to to get it going. So we have plans to thin the conifers this year lodgepole pines have encroached on the meadow, it's 300 acres of meadow and it's you know, hardly recognizable as a meadow anymore. So to thin all those trees and then go in and do some culturally guided prescribed burns, and then plant some culturally significant plants. Once the water table comes up a little bit we, you know, those, what we're seeing now through our groundwater monitoring is that those conifers are just acting as straws and sucking up all the moisture in the meadow. So we hope to have that you know, come back to be more Boggy and provide you know proper habitat for the middle plants everyone's their culturally significant plants plants use for medicine, plants for food, all these important to the Washoe, Washoe tribe and as well as basket making materials that are found in the meadow.

Megan Kay: 18:23

During a wildfire, firefighters have a lot to do make it easier for firefighters to defend your home, create defensible space. Now. defensible space is an area between a house and an oncoming wildfire with the vegetation has been managed to reduce the wildfire threat. Proper defensible space doesn't mean removing all vegetation though. By following the lean clean and green rule, you can keep your property safe while preserving its natural beauty. Learn more about defensible space in our guide fire adapted communities. The next step in wildfire preparedness, you can find the guide in the resources section of our website at living with fire dot com. So how did you guys? How are you guys able to understand the evidence of cultural practices and cultural burning? Like how did you guys come to learn about it? Did you guys talk to elders? Or is there documented history?

Helen Fillmore: 19:27

One of the trickiest parts about us and kind of about the washu tribe and our people in our community specifically in our relationship to fires that we I would say the greatest evidence that we have currently demonstrating that washiw people did burn pre contact pre you know pre colonialism is kind of the state of our ecosystems. So I would say that's the best evidence that we have because we Do you have a our homelands are located in areas where when settlement started, which, for a long time, you know, we didn't get you were kind of one of the later communities to get colonized just because of access to the Sierras. And there's so many mountains you have to climb just to get to washiw your homelands that it wasn't until like the late till the gold rush. And then when silver was found in the Comstock Lode that we really, like, started seeing a lot of settlement. But when we started seeing settlement in our homelands, it was significant, and it was severe. And so and since then, you know, I mean, we can just mention Tahoe, at any international stage, and people would know that area, because it's even to this day, you know, that the rate of tourism up there is so high. So with the influence of settlement, why should people have kind of, well, I shouldn't say, I would say, with the influence of settlement, we haven't our communities, our elders, our families haven't practiced fire, the entire Tahoe Basin was clear cut for timber production, at a certain time. And so that completely changed the ecosystem there. And so, you know, even even finding ecological evidence of like, how often fires might have occurred is, is a huge stretch that we're kind of trying to, to reconstruct and revitalize. And so, um, but is there, it's not that there isn't knowledge within our communities, or that our elders remember, it's just that we're asking them to remember things when they were three, four years old. And some of them, sometimes it's how you ask the questions, and sometimes it's how you start the stories and, and then what you get from those stories, it's also like, they might have a story of, you know, a certain fire story about how to cook pinenuts or a story about things where fire would be used. And to them, it's not, you know, we use fire for a healthy environment, we use fire to keep our plants strong, it was like, Well, this was when we used fire. And this was at this point, or this fire was lit because of this other reason, that seems completely unrelated. But it also shows like they had this huge, and like significant knowledge of fire and how it would move throughout the landscape. And so what we're working on right now, really, is to try to restore in those areas where I would, you know, weave weave together kind of all of that best knowledge that we might know, or weave together all of the evidence that we might be able to find in a way that is culturally relevant, even though it might not be rooted in very specific stories or, you know, very specific guidelines and how it was done previously, but ways that it can still be culturally relevant in a way that our like future generations can also carry it on from now. And so that kind of means that we're moving a little bit slower than what I think you know, even the environment wants us to move in, when it comes to kind of restoring what what needs to happen and what kind of changes we need to see. But at the same time, I think it is going to be a lot stronger, a lot stronger foundation, if we do it right, it'll have a lot stronger foundation, into the future.

Megan Kay: 23:41

Thank you for, for unpacking that for me, because like, it makes so much sense to what you guys were talking about, like what inspires you about your work. And so for me is not a scientist, but it, it makes me It's like putting together the pieces and using your science background, to come up with the evidence and maybe just shining a light on something that the scientific community has, it has yet to shine a light on, you know, using those skills that you guys have learned and then just like using it to talk about restoration, but in a cultural, with cultural context. And I just think that's why that this interests me so much, because it's kind of it's like a missing piece of the puzzle. And I wanted to follow up to and kind of ask about because you were talking about like cultural culturally relevant plants that you're trying to, to would it be like replant? Is that the right term or to just rehabilitate? Do you guys just want to share a little bit of of that those specifics like what kind of plants are you trying to emphasize and yeah, that

Rhiana Jones: 24:47

there's a list of, you know, maybe 60 plants that were chosen as having cultural significance. WEPD did some work with a cultural resources department and some elders to put together this list. Some of those plants would be Yarrow wild onion, swamp onion, these were all food. Not Yarrow years and medicine, mountain alder, service Berry, blueberry, green leaf, Manzanita, early fall, some root, and sincere. A lot of these plants all have names in Washoe. And some of them are still up in Meeks meadow, but some of them you don't see as much. or there might be, you know, one or two. So replanting would be, you know, one thing we do want to do. And that's kind of where that resilience guard would come in to see if we can grow some of these culturally significant native plants that you know, I don't know if you guys have ever tried to grow native plants, but it seems like only Mother Earth can do it.

Megan Kay: 25:51

I was gonna say for the resilience guard, would there is there then like a plan put in place to preserve what you guys have rehabilitated to make sure that it's that it's a resource for? Or is it just meant to be sort of Is it is it meant to be like a, an experiment, or is it meant to be like a usable resource, like a place that people can go to forage these plants,

Unknown: 26:13

it's mostly meant to be a usable resource, so that we could, you know, as funding allows, keep these plants growing, and have youth and community members come in and learn how to grow these plants, and what they're used for, and then also maybe be able to go out to rehabilitate their homelands, you know, I think that's a big, a big part of it. And very important, you know, in order for people to feel that connection to nature is to be able to go out and do the work themselves. So have these plants and then give them to the community. And, you know, maybe I think like, currently, we have funding to have a community member come in and take care of these plants. But you know, have them go out and continue to do this for years to come. I think the stewardship agreement for Meeks Meadow goes till 2028. So, you know, as long as we have that, that timeframe, and, and that permission to go and be doing work in the Meadow, we want to, you know, get as much stuff done as we can have as many cultural events as we can up there, and be able to take elders up there again, and, you know, hear those stories. And, you know, maybe they remember going up there as a kid, or, you know, hearing stories about their parents growing up as a kid, that, you know, my hopes are just kind of triggered those memories by actually taking people out. And having them you know, do more hands on stuff with the plants and the restoration. And, you know, planting the plants digging in the meadow, removing invasive weeds by hand, being able to identify those invasive weeds, that type of thing.

Helen Fillmore: 27:47

Yeah, and I guess just to add to that, too, because it like restoration is such restoration itself, right is such a intensive activity. To restore an ecosystem ecosystem from like a devastated or unhealthy state and get it back to a healthy state is labor intensive, it's costly, it's, it's really challenging, right. And then you're always evaluating kind of the pros and cons of different activities, because one activity might, you know, negatively impact a different activity. But when it comes to stewardship, if we can restore these ecosystems into a healthy state, and then provide our, you know, restore some of those cultural practices, so that it's truly just stewardship, and it's maintenance at that point it really like, then we don't have to, you know, wait till it regrows in 20 years, and then do this other intensive project. Again, we just have this ongoing maintenance, this ongoing stewardship of the area. And by restoring our culturally important plants that really does kind of restore, well, we have to restore the plants, but we also have to restore the activities that kind of really do improve those conditions for those plants and improve that connection between our community and that area. But if we're successful at all of those different steps, then really at that point, our community has everything that they need to, to really contribute to the health of the ecosystems as well as the health of like, our culture or language, our you know, traditional practices or, you know, spiritual beliefs, things like that. And so I think the long term goal is that, you know, we don't keep having that we can restore these areas, and then it's just, you know, maintenance and stewardship at that point. It's not these heavy, these intensive restoration projects. So

Megan Kay: 29:50

could you guys help paint a picture of like, what the ecosystem used to look like, what it looks like now and then kind of like what What you're trying to get it to? So like, what are these metals used to look like? Or if you were to experience it, what would it be? Like?

Christina Restaino: 30:07

And and more? How did they use to? What were the processes and the functions that made them healthy? Right? Because that's how we think about healthy, healthy ecosystems. Right is is, how were, what were the functions that were occurring that were evidence that they were healthy to begin with?

Megan Kay: 30:24

Yeah, so like, three, I guess we're going on a journey here. So it's like painting three pictures. So like, I guess pre colonization, and pre seven, pre, you know, European settlement. And then, I guess, whatever point you could pinpoint to target, I guess, like right now, and then also

Rhiana Jones: 30:44

you know, the Comstock era, like Helen what you're trying to get to, mentioned, changed everything. So I believe that was around 1860. So the metal previously was a meadow prior to settlers, the combs back era, it was, you know, still a meadow. And traditionally, Washoe's would have their winter camps in the Carson Valley, and then go up to Tahoe for their summer camps and spend the summer there hunting, fishing, and, you know, gathering these medicinal plants, and the foods that grew in the middle. So this, you know, happened for 1000s and 1000s of years. And then after the Comstock era, they cut it all down for timber, the meadow, I believe, was used for cattle grazing. And so it just completely changed the ecosystem. And, you know, Washoe's were driven out of Lake Tahoe, they weren't allowed to continue their seasonal migration to and from Lake Tahoe for their summer camps. And so they stopped, you know, essentially managing the land. And when I say managing land, you know, you talked a little bit about the history of fire. And so when I think about that, it's like, you know, they didn't call burning the meadow cultural burning, fire was just a part of life, you had a fire. And from what I've read, that fires were, when they left, the summer camp fires were left to burn. And then we'll just kind of small around the area, burn whatever trash or sticks they had cut down or use for tools, and then that kind of just smoldered out and kind of, you know, clean the area for the next next season's use. So there wasn't like a bunch of buildup in trash out there. I've also heard people tell stories, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, my father would burn the meadow. And I was like, Well, what was it for? Because, again, you know, asking elder, if they did cultural burning, you're not going to get the answer you want. So it's, you know, a process of trying to try to ask the right questions, like Helen said, and figure out, you know, how they used that fire? Was it for cooking was it for, you know, just warmth? Was it for cooking pine nuts or drying materials? You know, there's, there's information there that we were still getting at. But I think prior to the Comstock era, it was the seasonal migration that essentially was the land management of clearing out trees that were in their way in the way of their camps and maybe burning those trees. As simple as that.

Helen Fillmore: 33:15

It's really easy to explain when you look at the history of fire in the area to some of the other things like even when we're talking specifically about meadows, it gets a little bit more nuanced, because people don't understand like, oh, there's all these, you know, basket layer plants that won't grow if they don't have enough water. But why does this even matter? Because we'd rather go up into the hills and berries instead. Um, so. But when it comes to fire in the history of fire, like what we're seeing right now, for example, are these huge mega fires, then they're spreading so rapidly, and it's become it's a state of emergency all summer long every summer. And how did we get to that situation, and it's been, you know, the removal of fire, but also kind of the removal of indigenous practices within the lands. And so the removal of fire is a huge, like, fire is a disturbance, but it's a necessary disturbance. Our gathering practices are a disturbance, but they're unnecessary disturbance, our cooking practices were a disturbance but unnecessary disturbance that these ecosystems have also adapted to. And so when you remove a disturbance, just like if you remove an apex predator from the ecosystem, it totally changes that ecosystem and the health of that ecosystem in the way that it functions naturally. And so finding a way to incorporate that disturbance into the the system again in and not just incorporating it but incorporating it in the way that it would lead to the health and the like the natural state of that ecosystem. Originally. So that's kind of, I would say, where we're getting at as far as like what, why restoration is needed on these areas specifically is because we've removed these really important parts of the ecosystem. And then we've stayed hands off, and we'd left them alone. And now these ecosystems have grown and changed into these really unhealthy states that then create further devastation. And so the meadows are a really nice area. Um, as far as identifying like, really, I don't want to say easy, but the meadows are kind of perfect opportunity to just show how bad things get if we are actively managing it. So in forested areas, it kind of takes a little bit longer to see how, you know, you might do a prescribed burn, burn, and that'll kill some trees, and then it just kind of like people walk by, and they think it's so sad and, and horrible for so long until it finally eventually gets to that state. But in these meadows, you can look out to these completely even stands where you can't even see through them. You wouldn't be able to walk through them, the wildlife can't get through them. There's no corridor, they're completely separated. And then once the streets establish the re of, then the rate of establishment just keeps going up because they're able like with meadows, good functioning Meadow is wet enough that those conifer species can't grow there because they get their drowned basically to get too much water and they can't survive. But as soon as they start to establish themselves, and usually in drought years, they start to soak up more and more of that water. And then all of a sudden, you don't have a meadow, you have a really dense, really scary, really intense forest. And so at that point, it does take really heavy restoration work to remove it and get it back to that state. But then, because Meadows are such a annual ecosystem that even you know, after your first year of burning, the next spring, when everything grows, all the metal plants, not all of them, but a lot of them grow back and anything that had kind of that seed bank that's still in that area grows back, and they're luscious, and they're green, and they're beautiful. And so it's really a great, great focus. Right now, I think as far as kind of really trying to, to restore these practices in places that are really like really needed, like at a critical state right now.

Megan Kay: 37:57

Communities located in wildfire prone areas need to take extra measures to live safely. There are many ways to prepare communities and properties for wildfire, including creating and maintaining adequate defensible space and hardening homes to withstand wildfire. This could mean altering or replacing certain components of the home. Our wildfire home retrofit guide will help you better prepare your home and communities for wildfire. You can find the guide in the resources section of our website at living with fire calm.

Christina Restaino: 38:30

I want to hear a little bit more about the fire resilience projects and thinking about the kind of, you know, three different ecosystem types, if you will, right, you have the sere data, the PJ woodland and the sagebrush ecosystem. And so what does what do targets for cultural burning look like in those three very significantly different eco regions, if you will, that we have here?

Helen Fillmore: 39:05

Yeah, I'm good. I'm glad you brought that up. So the fire Resilience Project really came out of the my ahlawat to cultural burn, because we're, we're really our department is like environmental protection focused. So we don't have like a fire suppression focus or something like that within our department. And so when it came up that like, you know, fire, is it a stewardship practice? What is that going to look like for? Like, what do we what skills do we need? What resources do we need within this department to then be able to use fire as a stewardship practice on our projects for environmental protection? And so that's kind of how the conversation got started and what we're what we're looking at, but then it's tricky in these different ecosystems. So again, fire in Meadows it's obvious that Meadows need to be cleared out when they start when this conifers start to encroaching encroaching on it. In general in Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forests, it's pretty obvious. But then in these sagebrush woodland ecosystems with cheatgrass invasive species, implementing fire becomes this very complicated thing to tackle.

Megan Kay: 40:18

Yeah, cuz isn't there, isn't there more fire than there historically was in those ecosystems?

Helen Fillmore: 40:23

Yes. And it's in the fires. Devastating, right? Because pinyon pines, they're like these little shrubs that are close to the ground, and they don't have a thick bark, if fire gets to them, they're gone, for the most part. And so trying to figure out what fire may or may not have looked like in the pilot hills is a little bit trickier. But I have some theories I'm kind of based off of, because So the one thing that's different about taho in the pilot hills is that we do have a much more recent and stronger cultural memory about what happens in the pilot hills, because we, our family has kept our like tribal allotment properties in the pilot hills, because they were so significant to our culture, um, based off of like, what we can find they didn't, they never, you know, just did an understory burn, or tried to do a understory burn in the pilot hills. Based off the, I think, like, the evidence from our culture, I would say the evidence from an ecological standpoint, however, is also we get best as far as what change happened in the mid 1850s, that led to the Thai encroachment of pinyon, Juniper, both kind of infilling within the forest areas, and then also spreading. So I do on a personal note for like, some of our theories, from a cultural standpoint are a little bit stronger than what we might be able to find out from, like a scientific or ecological standpoint. And there is starting to be come, they're starting, there are some studies coming out about it, this is going to get kind of heavy for a second, but studies in the southwest talking about de-population. And so when settlers came here, when they first started showing up, our communities were already decimated, because like disease had come before them. And it like it followed them beforehand, we used to have very extensive trade routes. And so even before we started interacting with settlers, we were interacting with people who interacted with who interacted with who interacted with settlers, and then kind of already experiencing that devastation from disease. And so we might not know what our population was pre colonization, but we can estimate that it would be a lot larger than what it was when they did come here, or when they did start kind of making estimates about that. And so with that becomes a huge land use change, right? Because people aren't even there, just less people in the environment using the resources. I mean, now we have over as a country overpopulation, potentially, I mean, as a world, you know, we're really putting our resources that their, their capacity to a large degree, but in those times we were, they were being underutilized for for at least a few decades, right. Before? Well, that I would say they're still being underutilized to what they're kind of ecologically adapted to do, because not only with washy people, but for the nimo. And there were the only people in the Great Basin, the pilots were the reason why we've been able to survive for 1000s of years, because it was a food stores that you could store for multiple years. And that you can because you could store it, you could save it and store it, you could live off of it, even if there's a bad crop. So we have these climate of this, like, you know, hi, I always it's the most variable climate and almost the world because we have so many different mountain ranges, we have hot summers and cold winters. So both in like a regular, you know, yearly climate, but then in our annual we'll get some years where we get a lot of snow, and then some years followed by no snow. And so you have to have some sort of a food source that you can store for multiple years if you're gonna live. And so these areas were heavily heavily used by our communities. And then when you remove people from that situation, then they're no longer being used. So I think some of our strongest our strongest evidence of fire and cultural burning are what, you know, what did we do to keep those areas healthy for the future, and I really do think a lot of it comes from How we gathered pine nuts, how we cooked pine nuts and how we stored them. And so when we gathered pilots, we'd clean, I should say, not when we'd like not past tense, but when we gather pine nuts, we clean out the duff underneath these trees. And that's really important, especially when you go out there. Because if fire can get into that duff, it can get up into the tree really easy. So we clean out that duff, because it creates kind of this clear area that when we knock the pine nuts under the ground, and then you can get them. And then the other part that we do is that we call it a bhe, but it's like a big long stick, and then use that to knock the pine cones onto the ground. And when you do that, you're also thinning, like trimming the trees. Because these, these trees don't knock them, they're not the type of conifer that knocks like prunes themselves. So they have to have like to get rid of dead branches, they need assistance. And so when we're hitting those trees with that bhe, it's getting rid of those like those dead branches. And, you know, thinning that area out. So in and of itself, even just how we gather it, it creates a more fire resilient tree, just from gathering alone. And then with that duff, and that those dead branches. So when we cook our pine nuts, we cook them in like earthen ovens, we cook them under the ground. So you take that dead duff, those that branches, and you use it to start these, like fires to cook the pine nuts, and you cook the pine nuts. Um, and so then you are also getting rid of all of the fuel that would have been accumulated by these original practices. And then it would have been done kind of for months, in the fall time. Because everybody would go up into the pinenut hills and our co worker, Shelly Wyatt, she was even talking, we were talking earlier this year, and she was talking about how her her dad would remember because everybody go to the same camps. And so they would look out like across over the hill and see like smoke coming up, and they'll say, Oh, so and so must have just got up here from wherever. And, and they always knew that. So something that not only did they do it every year. But it was something that people were so comfortable with. And they just been, you know, the fall time up there and even kind of into more recent years. But now, like what you're saying, with cheatgrass, I mean, I don't even know. Like, we don't know what the solution is right now. Like we know that we're our community is experiencing that devastation, our elders are always asking us like, what are we doing to protect the pinenut hills. But with that invasive like, there, it I hate to say like, there's not a whole lot of hope we're going to do our best no matter what, um, and anything we can do to kind of help like the next person that's going to have to pick that up and do it to you. I think it's worth the effort. But But yeah, it's a it's definitely a tricky conversation, once we start talking about, like, fire in the face of climate change in the face of invasive species in the face of things that you know, are a little bit harder to control. You know, I

Christina Restaino: 48:19

I also would think that the gathering of the Duff and the litter and, and the branches and everything and burning all throughout probably kept down seedlings from encroaching, right. So it's not only was it making it more resilient of fire, but it was also reducing kind of in growth, which is becoming a problem in those regions also now, right. And so it's that, that dynamic, it, it reminds me, I went on a trip in Inyo with some tribal elders there. And they were explaining the piagi trenches on the Jeffrey pine trees and how they gather the larvae of the Pandora moth. And they but historically, they would clear the Duff around all of the big Jeffrey pine trees. And those are some of the oldest, most kind of iconic, beautiful pine trees that that exist on the east side, because they were culturally maintained for generations. And you know, those trees have survived multiple wildfires in the contemporary era because of that. And so, I think that that logic is really sound right that that's what was happening in the pine nuts that it's this mix of you kind of grooming the ecosystem, if you will, managing it's and then you know, having that ecosystem adapt to that management over time and then you remove that entirely and well You don't get that anymore. The sites that need to be restored are the sites where that kind of, you know, multi generational understanding of ecosystem process and function has been removed. Right. And it's that very key, you know, whether it's suppressing giant wildland fires, whether it's removing cultural practices, any of these kind of critical maintenance regimes that were occurring that are now gone. That's why we are working so hard to quote unquote, restore our , our our ecosystems is to find that balance again. But just like you said, the target of what that balance is, is changing. So significantly, with invasive species with climate change with encroachment of more humans and the wildland urban interface, right. So, you know, bringing in the lessons learned as much as we can is so critical, but it is hard sometimes to feel like we are we are keeping up with the pace and skill that's needed.

Megan Kay: 51:09

It seems like the target instead of, you know, a ecological target should be more like a cultural one. Or it's like, okay, these are the benchmarks, if we have people in the ecosystem doing this work, like meaning work, like in quotation marks, meaning just like living and like participating in these practices, then hopefully, that would be kind of re introducing the human disturbance, which I thought that was just like, so beautiful. The way you said that the Helen are you just like the humans are disturbance, but they're unnecessary disturbance when they're living with the land and the, the symbiotic relationship between man and you know, clearing the Duff to harvest pine nuts and how, how that shaped the land. So yeah, it seems like from a management standpoint, I mean, it's sucks, because if you can't hit those benchmarks of like, okay, we need to restore this landscape this way. But it's like, Okay, if we can have, if you can at least, show that there is some improvement, and there's engagement, and we're getting people out there again, to engage in these practices.

Christina Restaino: 52:18

Well, and it's all sorts of human interactions, right? Because it's like, we need to think about contemporary human interactions in the current system that we're engaging with, right? And, and all social scientists, which I'm trained as an ecologist, but have worked a lot side by side with folks in the social sciences, you can read dozens of hundreds 1000s of academic papers showing ecological resilience is social resilience, as you know, right? There are these, you can't have one without the other, I still think we're having to convince agencies and folks that this social cultural resilience is just as important as ecological resilience, and you can't have one without the other. And I'm seeing all the heads, not here on the zoom screen. But, you know, I think that one of the issues that I tend to have is that, you know, these planning processes that we need to go through in order to implement any management actions on the landscape takes such a long time, that by the time we get to implement them that it's like, well, now the target has changed. And we need to be rethinking how we're, you know, yeah, it's just, we have so much data and science and information and suggestions out there, we just need to do.

Helen Fillmore: 53:41

The other part, too, is like, when it does come to that social component. What we're also facing, right is that even, I mean, we want people to reconnect with the land, but we want them to reconnect with it in the right ways. So like, one of the things that we're really struggling with, in our pinenut hills is like off road vehicle use, and they they're creating like way more bad disturbance than they are any kind of good disturbance. And, and so I think that's the other part is like making sure that we're we're telling like the right story, that it's not just yeah, it's not just kind of going up there. And I don't know, I mean, cultural appropriation has been such a huge issue that we've also experienced that having like that conversation can get tricky, but I think one of the things I like about our work is that we really do get to work directly, like with the tribe and for the tribe. And so everything we do really is kind of not appropriative at that point, it really is about kind of getting doing the right things that are you know, there are families that their families have already been doing for so long.

Megan Kay: 54:53

Yeah, and that's why we want to get like educate people about those appropriate practices and This is a good way because we're already talking about it to transition to kind of like this, what you guys see is the future of fire and stewardship. On I mean, I guess you can, whatever you could be in the US and the world, but also like, specifically to some Washoe lands, like how, what? And I would, I would, I would ask you not just like your hopes and dreams for the history of fire, but also like, based on your experience, like working with inter-agencies, like what are some successes, you've seen some inspiring things, and also just some challenges to like, these stewardship endeavors.

Rhiana Jones: 55:36

In terms of working with other agencies, you know, I kind of started that process. And what I have found is, when it's not fire season, they are very, very receptive and willing, and open to working with tribes, and, you know, they understand our need for wanting to bring fire back to the land. You know, talking about cultural burning a prescribed fire, it's gotten a lot of I don't know, what's the word, momentum this year with respect to California being on fire. And, you know, just kind of rethinking about our land practices, not just as a tribe, or as an indigenous person, but as somebody who lives in California, or somebody lives in the Great Basin, just, you know, like, what we're doing, you know, isn't working any longer, it might have worked in the past with suppressing fire. But now it's gotten to the point where these forests are so overgrown that it's like, okay, let's take a step back and look at maybe how, you know, indigenous people managed land before and if this is the right direction to go. So they've been very open and receptive. We've also been very fortunate to have other tribes come and do training for our community, the Greenville ranch area, and Danny Manning. And then also bill Tripp from the karuk tribe in Northern California. And Ron goode from I believe the is East fork, Mono, or is it mono I never Mono, mono's a disease, right?

Christina Restaino: 57:14

They always say Mono is a disease, it's Mono!

Rhiana Jones: 57:18

Right? My dad better not hear this, it's gonna give it to me. So those tribes and those particular people have been have been working towards this goal for some years, they've, they have, you know, the proper connections, the, the path you need to take to do what we want to do, which is, you know, kind of be in charge of our own. Our own burning, perhaps have a native fire program that is just in terms of being like, more self sufficient or a sovereign nation like be able to have our own our own fire crew that protects our own homelands. So I think I yeah, I think people are receptive and open to it. And this is the perfect time to be starting a program like this because of the situation that you know, California has been in with, with the wildfires these past few seasons and climate change and whatnot.

Megan Kay: 58:26

Thank you for listening to the living with fire podcast. You can find more stories about wildfire and other resources at living with fire.com. The Living of fire program is funded by the University of Nevada, Reno, extension, Nevada Division of Forestry, Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service.