Under the guise of science: how the US Forest Service deployed settler colonial and racist logics to advance an unsubstantiated fire suppression agenda

Vinyeta, Kirsten

doi:10.1080/23251042.2021.1987608

Cited by 28 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Before colonization, a combination of lightning ignitions and indigenous burning resulted in a fire regime of frequent and predominantly low severity fires across much of California mixed conifer forest (Agee 1994;Crawford et al 2015;Fry & Stephens 2006). As settler populations increased during the mid-1800s, forced removal of indigenous people, criminalization of cultural burning, and active fire suppression reduced fire frequency on the landscape (Taylor et al 2016;Vinyeta 2021). A fire history study at the site indicated a median historical fire return interval of 11 years (Carl Skinner, unpublished report), within the 7-20-year range documented from similar forests in the region (Agee 1994).…”

Section: Locationmentioning

confidence: 96%

Forest thinning and prescribed burning treatments reduce wildfire severity and buffer the impacts of severe fire weather

Brodie,

Knapp,

Brooks

et al. 2024

fire ecol

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Background The capacity of forest fuel treatments to moderate the behavior and severity of subsequent wildfires depends on weather and fuel conditions at the time of burning. However, in-depth evaluations of how treatments perform are limited because encounters between wildfires and areas with extensive pre-fire data are rare. Here, we took advantage of a 1200-ha randomized and replicated experiment that burned almost entirely in a subsequent wildfire under a wide range of weather conditions. We compared the impacts of four fuel treatments on fire severity, including two thin-only, a thin-burn, a burn-only, and an untreated control. We evaluated four fire severity metrics—tree mortality, average bole char height, percent crown volume consumed (PCVC), and percent crown volume affected (PCVA)—and leveraged data from pre-fire surface and canopy fuels to better understand the mechanisms driving differences in wildfire severity among treatments and how they changed with fire weather. Results We found strong mitigating effects of treatments on fire behavior and tree mortality, despite 20 years having elapsed since mechanical thinning and 10 years since the second entry of prescribed fire. The thin-burn treatment resulted in the lowest fire severity across all four metrics and the untreated control the highest. All four fire severity metrics were positively associated with pre-fire canopy and surface fuel loads, with the exception that PCVC (a fire severity metric related to crown fire behavior) was not associated with surface fuel load. The fire weather conditions under which fuel treatment was most effective varied among fire severity metrics. Fuel treatment benefit was maximized at intermediate burning index values for tree mortality, intermediate to high burning index values for PCVA, and high burning index for bole char height and PCVC. Conclusions We conclude that reducing canopy bulk density via mechanical thinning treatments can help to limit crown fire behavior for 20 years or more. However, reducing surface fuels is necessary to limit scorching and the total crown impacts associated with tree mortality. Further, while fuel treatment effectiveness may decline under the most severe fire weather conditions for fire severity metrics associated with tree mortality, it is maximized under severe fire weather conditions for fire severity metrics associated with crown fire behavior (bole charring and torching). Our results provide strong evidence for the use of fuel treatments to mitigate fire behavior and resulting fire severity even under extreme fire weather conditions.

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Section: Locationmentioning

confidence: 96%

Forest thinning and prescribed burning treatments reduce wildfire severity and buffer the impacts of severe fire weather

Brodie,

Knapp,

Brooks

et al. 2024

fire ecol

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“…Such restrictions diminished ecosystem health, promoted fuel accumulation and severe wildfires, and harmed Indigenous and agricultural communities (Goode et al . 2018; Norgaard 2019; Vinyeta 2022). Although attitudes are changing, fire‐averse mentalities and suppression‐oriented land management policies still impede the widespread use of fire as a restoration or fuel reduction tool in the NAMCZ (North et al .…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as early as 1793 in Mexico and 1850 in the US, governments began banning cultural fire by Indigenous groups (California Statutes 1850), as well as limiting fire use by other landowners (Biswell 1999). Such restrictions diminished ecosystem health, promoted fuel accumulation and severe wildfires, and harmed Indigenous and agricultural communities (Goode et al 2018;Norgaard 2019;Vinyeta 2022). Although attitudes are changing, fire-averse mentalities and suppressionoriented land management policies still impede the widespread use of fire as a restoration or fuel reduction tool in the NAMCZ (North et al 2015;Miller et al 2020;Clark et al 2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming obstacles to prescribed fire in the North American Mediterranean climate zone

Williams,

Quinn‐Davidson,

Safford

et al. 2023

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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Prescribed fire is an important management tool for restoring fire‐adapted ecosystems and mitigating the risk of high‐severity wildfire in the North American Mediterranean climate zone (NAMCZ), much of which was historically characterized by frequent low‐ to moderate‐severity fire. For over a century, policies that excluded fire, curtailed Indigenous cultural burning, and prioritized timber harvesting have, in combination with anthropogenic climate warming, driven large‐scale, high‐severity fires that are wreaking ecological and socioeconomic havoc. Despite its recognized need, the use of prescribed fire at appropriate scale has been slow to occur. We describe some of the principal obstacles to increasing the application of prescribed fire in the NAMCZ and suggest four strategies for policy makers and high‐level managers to overcome them: (1) redoubling federal and state agency commitment and rewarding assertive leadership, (2) increasing funding for prevention‐focused management (as opposed to suppression), (3) building capacity through cooperation, and (4) expanding monitoring to inform burn strategies and adaptive management.

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“…This is because the U.S. government never ratified treaties negotiated in good faith with the Karuk people (Heizer 1972, Hurtado 1988, Johnston-Dodds 2002, Karuk DNR 2011. In California history, state sanctioned violence and racialized dispossession targeting Indigenous peoples in California was accompanied by intensive natural resource extraction (Norgaard 2014, Madley 2016, Vinyeta 2022; http://karuktimeline.wordpress.com. ); a history that continues to affect the Karuk Tribe today (Bowers and Carpenter 2011, Norgaard 2014, Marks-Block et al 2019.…”

Section: Study System: Karuk Water Quality Governance In the Mid-klamathmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For many years, the Karuk Tribe was excluded from land and water management decision making affecting Karuk ancestral territory (Norgaard 2005, Diver 2014, Vinyeta 2022. Despite ongoing barriers to entry, formal tribal participation in agency-driven management decisions started with the creation of Karuk fisheries departments in 1989.…”

Section: Study System: Karuk Water Quality Governance In the Mid-klamathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indigenous nations at the confluence: water governance networks and system transformation in the Klamath Basin

Diver¹,

Eitzel²,

Brown³

et al. 2022

E&S

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Collaborative approaches to complex water quality problems can facilitate collective action across large watersheds with multiple, overlapping political jurisdictions, including Indigenous territories. Indigenous nations are increasingly engaging in collaborative water governance, in part, as a response to colonial legacies that have excluded Indigenous peoples from watershed management. This study uses social network analysis to explore emerging Klamath water governance networks. We seek to understand ongoing system transformation in contemporary water governance through tribal engagement in multi-jurisdictional water governance networks, from a system of Indigenous dispossession and exclusion (late 1800s-1980s) toward a yet unrealized system that centers Indigenous peoples. To envision the meaningful inclusion of Indigenous peoples in adaptive water governance, we first draw on criteria established by Indigenous water governance scholars. Then, we examine a snapshot of Indigenous participation in water quality governance in the Klamath Basin that focuses on the Karuk Tribe from 2018-2019. Specifically, Karuk tribal managers identified 21 different science-policy coalitions that they worked with on a range of water quality issues. We then used social network analysis methods to generate a network in which 210 different organizations were linked through co-membership in one or more coalitions. Our findings indicated that the Karuk and other Klamath Basin tribes play a central role in Klamath water quality governance and were not relegated to "stakeholder status." Using a community detection algorithm, we found that tribes were key players in the central technical working group that emerged through network connections. Applying a log-linear statistical model, we also observed a high level of mixing in the network across all types of organizations, including tribes. Finally, through a multi-membership model, we found that tribes were more strongly connected to influential network actors than NGOs, despite environmental NGOs being more numerous. These analyses demonstrate how tribal engagement can activate key mechanisms for water quality governance transformation, e.g., shifting information flows and changing system structures to more effectively center Indigenous nations. In addition to insights from social network analysis, we also highlight the limitations of technical water management in supporting the deep connections held between Indigenous peoples and their waters that are central to Indigenous water governance.

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Under the guise of science: how the US Forest Service deployed settler colonial and racist logics to advance an unsubstantiated fire suppression agenda

Cited by 28 publications

References 36 publications

Forest thinning and prescribed burning treatments reduce wildfire severity and buffer the impacts of severe fire weather

Forest thinning and prescribed burning treatments reduce wildfire severity and buffer the impacts of severe fire weather

Overcoming obstacles to prescribed fire in the North American Mediterranean climate zone

Indigenous nations at the confluence: water governance networks and system transformation in the Klamath Basin

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