A Fire Reignited: The Karuk Tribe Wins Back Right to Cultural Burning After More Than a Century

Indigenous individuals preparing for traditional burn - Credit: Fire Networks (Website)

Sierra Pope | Multimedia News Intern

4-minute Read

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – For the Karuk Tribe, fire is not destruction, but a ceremony of life; and now, for the first time in modern history, state officials are recognizing this truth, and reversing regulations implemented in 1850.

According to the Good Fire II report, more than 80% of the Karuk Tribe’s cultural and medicinal plants are reliant on fire.

“Karuk people have been using fire to enhance our traditional food, fiber and medicinal resources since time immemorial,” Bill Tripp, Director of the Karuk Tribe Natural Resource Department, described.“We've gone more than a century now without being able to freely practice this at meaningful scales.”

A woman of the Karuk Tribe traditionally burning - Credit: Alex Watts Tobin

The Karuk is the second-largest Native American group in California. There are more than 6,000 members and descendant members of the tribe. They live in northwestern California, in the Klamath River basin. 

The tribe lives in more than 100 villages that cover more than 1,000,000 acres, building large rectangular houses out of redwood planks, fitting many people.

Salmon and acorns are the most important foods of the Karuk. They fish and hunt eel, deer, and other animals. They also gather plants such as acorns, berries, and yampah.

For generations, the group has united through cultural burnings, which are regarded as sacred gifts to the Earth. Because of California’s concerns over wildfire risks, they have long had to defend their tribal sovereignty.

“When it comes to that ability to get out there and do frequent burning to basically survive as an indigenous community; for one, you don’t have major wildfire threats because everything around you is burned regularly,” Tripp indicated. “For two, most of the plants and animals that we depend on in the ecosystem are actually fire-dependent species.”

However, the tribe’s legislation was passed by the state last year that allows federally recognized tribes to burn freely once they reach agreements with the California Natural Resources Agency and local air quality officers, transpiring at the end of February 2025.

“Karuk has been a national thought leader on cultural fire,” Geneva E.B. Thompson, Deputy Secretary for Tribal Affairs at California National Resources Agency, admitted. “So, it makes sense that they would be a natural first partner in this space because they have a really clear mission and core commitment to get this work done.”

Indigenous people traditionally burning - Credit: Murphy Woodhouse

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection will no longer hold authority over the burns, and will instead act as a partner through government-to-government relationship. The newly approved law, Senate Bill 310, tells the state to respectfully ”get out the way” of tribes conducting cultural burns, Thompson said, stepping toward the rewrite of history.

“I think Senate Bill 310 is part of that broader effort to correct those older laws that caused harm,” Thompson stated.

Due to consistent perseverance, the Karuk Tribe has gained the liberty to fellowship amongst each other with fire, continuing the ongoing fight for Indigenous freedom, and showing the world an example of power at its purest form.