State The of Fire illustrations by Obi Kaufmann WHY WE NEED TO by Beau Flemister
OBI KAUFMANN Fire exists in California as it does nowhere else on the planet. Fire has actually been stewarded by humans for an entire geologic age, in the Holocene and before. California burns because of decisions that people make or don’t make, and it has always been this way. And this is very good news. Because the stewarding of fire, and land fire in California, is a human endeavor. So, this is not some negative externality that is imposed upon the modern thing that is American California. It is embedded in the living cycles across the landscape, inside of the evolutionarily invented adaptive cycles of habitats’ faces. Getting right with fire in California over the next century just might bring about a renaissance of not only paradigm thinking in regards to ecology, but new frontiers of economic growth that could propel California into a new era of resiliency and abundance. But, yeah, why does California burn? Because the decisions that people make. THE ROOTED JOURNAL Why does California burn?
A CALIFORNIAN NATURALIST DISCUSSES RETHINK OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH BURNING LAND.
AS I WRITE THIS IN JANUARY 2025, California is burning. More than 80,000 Los Angeles residents have been evacuated, the Altadena and Pacific Palisades communities have been decimated, and the winds fueling these fires are still blowing. Indeed, “The State of Fire: Why California Burns,” the latest book from award-winning author-artist-conservationist Obi Kaufmann, is eerily timely. Part field guide, part scientific paper, part poetry — brimming with stunning watercolor illustrations, maps, and calligraphic excerpts — “The State of Fire,” like all of Kaufmann’s works, is far more than a good read. The book is an illuminating experience, if not a crash course in ecological philosophy, as Kaufmann phrases it. A few hundred miles north of the flames, from his home office in Oakland, Kaufmann spoke to The Rooted Journal about his book and our complicated relationship with fire.
TRJ What are some common misconceptions people have about fire and California?
OK As I wrote this book, I found myself with this nearsightedness — this blindness, even — that has afflicted so many before me. It might be a misinterpretation of core ecological functionality, at best, and the perpetuation of injustice, at worst. I think one of the great examples, perhaps, is [naturalist] John Muir. John Muir goes on and on about the pristine wilderness, when, in reality, he had no idea what he was looking at. What he was looking at was an anthropomorphic landscape completely designed, engineered, and managed by tribal stewardship. The invisibility and erasure of indigenous culture in California is something that I aim to reconcile in the next books that I am now working on. There are more tribal sovereignties in pre-contact California than there were in the rest of North America, outside of Mexico. All the resources necessary to ensure one’s people are well fed, for example, really comes out of their super sophisticated technology of fire. Fire application on the land is not a destructive story being told, but rather a nutritive vector of chemical fertilizer on the ground. When fire does its thing, it shocks the ground
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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ISSUE 02
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