Forest Service and Washoe Tribe work together to improve forest health and resilience

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The Washoe Environmental Protection Department (WEPD) recently hosted the first Washoe Intentional Fire Training at Lake Tahoe. This is a significant step toward reintroducing cultural stewardship practices on their ancestral and current homelands. For millennia, Tribal members recognized that fire was an integral part of nature and that frequent, low-intensity fires were essential to reducing wildfire risk and maintaining forest health. The USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management (LTBMU) said they were honored to work alongside Tribal partners to achieve our shared goals of healthier, more resilient forests.

“The Washoe Tribe has been working to restore their stewardship practices in the Tahoe Basin ever since forcible removal from the Tahoe Basin,” said Washoe Environmental Protection Department Director, Rhiana Jones. “Washoe people have not been allowed to tend the land as they had done for thousands of years, so that is why partnerships with the LTBMU, and other agencies are crucial to the Tribe so that we can again have access to our homelands and can regain our role as land stewards in our homelands”

The LTBMU provided equipment and instruction for the field-based components of the training, which included the fundamentals of wildland firefighting and an introduction to the Incident Command System. The Watershed Research and Training Center and The Nature Conservancy also provided training modules on basic firefighting tools, fire behavior and weather, fire line construction standards, and the safety system used by firefighters to protect themselves in wildland fire environments known as LCES (lookouts, communications, escape routes and safety zones).

Moving forward from the Intentional Fire Training, the LTBMU is committed to partnering with the Washoe Tribe to implement prescribed fire projects on National Forest lands. The LTBMU and the Washoe Tribe will work together to cooperatively conduct prescribed burning and provide more opportunities to return cultural burning on Washoe ancestral lands in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Prescribed fire helps protect communities by using low-intensity burning to remove excess vegetation (fuels) that can feed unwanted wildland fires. Low-intensity burning also benefits forest health by making room for new growth which provides forage for wildlife, recycling nutrients back into the soil, and reducing the spread of insects and disease. Cultural burning is usually specific to a certain area and is on a smaller scale, meant to restore a specific plant like willow, elderberry, or yarrow.

“Together we aim to reduce the risk of extreme fire, uphold traditions while emphasizing the continued Washoe Tribe presence around Lake Tahoe, and restore balance to our fire-dependent ecosystems,” said Forest Supervisor, Erick Walker.

The Washoe Intentional Fire Training was a collaborative interagency effort between the Washoe Tribe, the University of Nevada, Reno Extension, The Watershed Research and Training Center, The Nature Conservancy, and the LTBMU. Funding was provided by the California Department of Forestry (CAL FIRE), The Nature Conservancy, the Tahoe Fund, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and the National Forest Foundation.