What does it take to transform a storyscape?

December 15, 2023.Reading time 15 minutes.

Fire is a key part of our storyscape in California. Depending on whom you talk to, stories about fire range the gamut from nostalgia to terror. For most people, fire is a thing either confined to a fireplace (or campfire pit) or a devastating force producing smoky orange skies and moonscapes. And for most government […]

Why a trio of articles on tribes + fire = essential reading

September 1, 2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

Wildfires are a permanent part of the landscape. Climate change – and a host of “positive” ecological feedback loops (a positive loop is one that is self-reinforcing; a negative loop indicates reactions that move in the opposite direction) – mean that things will only get worse, not better, unless we enact radical changes. We have […]

Wildfires affect California tribes in myriad ways: some more visible than others

December 26, 2021.Reading time 10 minutes.

In my most recent article for PBS Southern California, KCET News, “California tribes support each other and seek inclusion in State wildfire response,” I relate how different tribes across Northern and Southern California address ongoing wildfire emergencies that impact tribal members living on tribal trust lands (reservations and rancherias). Flames were racing towards the Big […]

We become the smoke we once fled

November 9, 2019.Reading time 6 minutes.

The Kincade Fires of Sonoma County have, at last, been vanquished. But their destructive taint remains on the land, in our hearts and within our storyscapes, never to be erased. Yesterday, the anniversary of the Camp Fire (the deadliest and most destructive of California’s wildfires, so far) Paradise residents gathered for a memorial service unveiling […]