During the winter months its easy to forget about the total fucking chaos we experienced with the weather last year. Which serves as just the tip of the iceberg for global climate change. Apart of that chaos were the devastating fires that lit up much of the west coast of the United States. However, some researchers are bringing insight to a ancient method to combat these out of control wildfires called controlled burns. So what are controlled burns and how do they help prevent climate change?
What
Earlier this summer as I was leaving work I noticed a distinct haze in the air. It smelled of a terrible burn, and breathing was tougher even for me as a healthy adult. I assumed it was a big house fire nearby but there weren’t any fire alarms. So I did what everyone else does, googled it. To my surprise it was the wildfires happening in California, Oregon, and Washington. The surprise was that I live in Massachusetts on the other side of the Continent. Yet our air quality seemed significantly worse even from things that happened a whole world away.
Yes wildfires are a common occurrence on the west coast but they have certainly been exacerbated recently due to climate change and the areas being drier than usual. This isn’t new and apparently in order to combat this and keep wildfires from getting out of control, controlled burns have been used as well by none other than the OGs of North America the Indigenous people, AKA Native Americans, AKA y’all need to put some respect on their name! Looking at you Chicago, Florida State, Atlanta, Kansas City, and whatever team decides to place people as a mascot.
Apparently, the Native people of the West Coast particularly Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Tribes of Northern California tribe have practiced controlled burns systematically to prevent anyone fire from going out of control. The thought was that with less undergrowth and kindling every year no fire would grow to monstrous proportions like it has this past decade. The indigenous people of the Americas have been practicing these methods for millennia to tribal cultures almost as if they have intimate knowledge of the land and know how to live in it. So what happened?
Well, I assume we all know what has become of the first people to live in North America? Colonial rule, expansion, and the subsequent destruction of many of the Native and tribal cultures and traditions were lost. Through practices of killing and driving the native people off there ancestral homelands to reservations, deliberately burning there lands outside of there normal cycle, and thru governance and law implemented to outlaw the Native people’s practices, controlled burning was becoming a thing of the past. By the turn of the 20th century controlled burning by the Natives was all but outlawed by the Weeks act in 1911. And of course we all remember Smokey the Bear stressing about those damn fires, when really we kinda needed the small ones for a whole list of reasons. So let’s find out how controlled burns work and are useful to battle climate change.
How
Controlled burns as I started earlier ain’t nothing new, but new findings on the science have recently been published by Dr. Adam Pellegrini who has said “we’ve found that in ecosystems including temperate forests, savannahs and grasslands, fire can stabilise or even increase soil carbon” He added: “Most of the fires in natural ecosystems around the globe are controlled burns, so we should see this as an opportunity. Humans are manipulating a process, so we may as well figure out how to manipulate it to maximise carbon storage in the soil.” In other words, let’s do what science always does observes what happens in nature and manipulate to our advantage.
Wildfires burn plant matter and organic layers within the soil releasing carbon into the atmosphere, in severe cases of wildfire (Like what’s been going on in the American West) can lead to leaching of carbon, erosion and more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. Basically contributing to this increasingly hotter sweat box we call home.
However controlled burns if done correctly can help by creating charcoal and physical clumps of organic material (called aggregates) that are fire resistant. Fire can also increase the amount of bound carbon to minerals. As Dr. Pellegrini put it “ecosystems can store huge amounts of carbon when the frequency and intensity of fires is just right. It’s all about the balance of carbon going into soils from dead plant biomass, and carbon going out of soils from decomposition, erosion, and leaching”.
If fires are too frequent or intense they burn away the plant and dead carbon material that would otherwise decompose in the soil. The Fires can even kill the much needed fungi and bacteria for decomposition causing a unbalanced ecosystem. However, without fire the carbon is recycled by the microbes and bacteria and produces carbon dioxide and methane gases further helping to warm our planet.
Conclusion
So as you can see like everything in life we need a balance……even for fires. Too much and we are like Lloyd Banks burning the roof off this mother@%g#r. Too little and we are like Nelly and its definitely getting hot in here. The Native tribes of America knew this and I love how scientists are re-discovering what they new for centuries. I can only imagine of what other scientific knowledge has been lost due to the systematic oppression of a people, but let’s learn from what we have now so we all don’t end up like G-unit.
Also if you are interested in supporting some of the efforts to bring back the controlled burns and learn more about this practice I highly suggest you follow and support the Karuk Climate Change project. (Links below)
KarukTribeClimateChangeProjects.wordpress.com
Learn about Prescribe Fire” Youtube Playlist
Western Klamath Restoration Partnership Website
Science Splaining 