Don is Plains Miwok from the central valley of California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. He believes that due to the wildfires in California, initiatives are taking place that recognize the place of Indigenous fire, most prominently “a stronger desire to support capacity building for Indigenous peoples to re-engage with fire”. Funding efforts from some philanthropic organizations in late 2019 to revitalize Indigenous fire saw Don co-leading and reaching out to those community members who already actively burn or hold traditional knowledge of the same.

Revitalizing cultural fire (4.37)

Don comments that this is the first time that community members in California are receiving financial incentives for their cultural stewardship. Various policy barriers - access to land and funding and permission to burn using traditional laws - are being addressed through the creation of a tribally chartered non-profit organization spearheaded in 2020, looking to be incorporated as the Indigenous Stewardship Network to support learning, advance policy effort and act as a refunding and redistribution entity.

Building and empowering the youth (07.16)

Don looks to the youth to carry Indigenous knowledge of fire into the future and seeks young people from his Nation to mentor. Knowledge holders training the youth to understand the cultural reasons for burning, read the landscape and maintain culture will enable the youth to step into decision-making roles and policy arenas. It is important to support the landscapes and cultures around them. Don credits the media with generating attention and public recognition, which brings unique opportunities for advancing this work now.

Enabling cultural burning (11.49)

Don speaks about California Bill SB 332 which only allows certified burn bosses and cultural burners to burn, and that if they meet certain conditions, they shall not be liable for any fire suppression or other costs otherwise recoverable for a prescribed burn. This also means that you need the landowner’s permission to burn, which then allows you to not have a burn plan, giving tribal burners the flexibility to read the landscape and conduct the burn in response. This law enables cultural burners to have more immunity when using fire in a landscape.

Spreading like good fire (16.05)

Don also speaks about California Bill AB 642 which primarily codifies the definitions of cultural fire and incentivizes agencies to work with cultural burners to implement plans and enable Indigenous stewardship. California’s strategic plan for expanding the use of beneficial fire is specifically focused on reducing wildfire risk and enhancing the application of prescribed and cultural fire in partnership with stakeholders, with funding and workshops. Don is hopeful about these new changes and looks forward to testing them and inspiring other communities.

Cultural fire progress (20.21)

Don lists some challenges to advancing cultural fire - the criteria for declaring someone trained and the sensitivities around tribal sovereignty for that declaration. If someone is not exposed to traditional cultural fire training, errors in the process could occur. He views cultural burning learning opportunities that support older traditions as ways to build cultural competency. Each culture has a different reason and season to burn and traditional stories which explain fire, so embedding the knowledge of burning within cultural knowledge is important.

Learning from fire (23.42)

Don shares that if you are gentle with fire and approach it in a good way, you can learn from it, or you can learn the lessons the hard way. Thinking about the reasons for burning helps look for learning opportunities in burning. Don’s approach to burning changes according to the requirement, but praying and acknowledging the land is always a part of it. Even if a process does not have ceremonial gestures surrounding it, it can still hold value and meaning for the land and the community.

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Cultural Fire in California with Don Hankins

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