“Fire is something that we have mastered. We’ve used it to mold our ecosystem.”

The Karuk Tribe’s ancestral territory spans more than a million acres of what is now Northern California, 98 percent of it now administered as federal land within two national forests. For thousands of years, fire was the Karuk people’s primary land management tool, shaping basket weaving materials, calling salmon up cool rivers, and maintaining a landscape designed to coexist with people. When that fire was suppressed, ecosystems suffered, biodiversity declined, and catastrophic wildfires like the 2020 Slater Fire reshaped what was possible.

This story travels the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests with Bill Tripp, Analisa Tripp, Kathy McCovey, and Tribal Council member Michael Thom to share how the Karuk Tribe is using Self-Governance and Self-Determination authority to advance true co-management with federal partners, scale up prescribed and cultural burning, and bring fire back to the people who have always known how to use it well.