Micro-Climate Blog: Present and Past Experience of Wildfire Management

By Marcy Rockman, Lifting Rocks Climate and Heritage Consulting, for the SHA Climate Heritage Initiative

Two cultural connections here to the growing risks and impacts of wildfire. First, sharing the announcement from the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center that they will be hosting a virtual workshop on September 26, 2024, about Tribal approaches to managing fire in a changing climate (registration link here).

Second is a look at how archaeology can complement current efforts to realign policy and practice regarding wildfire. In this 2021 paper, Roos and co-authors bring together fire scar data, sediment and pollen records, and other evidence of landscape management of the ancient wildland-urban interface (WUI) on the Jemez Plateau from ca. 1100s to 1600s CE. What this combination allows is an evidence-based estimation of what it may have looked, felt, and smelled like to live for generations in proximity to sufficient regular controlled burning to keep larger fires at bay. It also provides a basis for envisioning forms of cultural adaptation that could support developing relationships with fire into the future.

Featured Link: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2018733118

For a listing of all blog posts in this series, visit our Climate Heritage Initiative page.

Photo credit: Prescribed fire under ponderosa pine, New Mexico, photo by the U.S. Geological Survey and posted by the National Park Service at https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/wildfire-and-archeology-in-the-jemez-mountains.htm