Courtney Steed often burns barefoot.
It is, in part, a practical choice.
Im positive, she said, they didnt wear fire boots.
Wildfires are coming to the Southeast. Can landowners mitigate the risk in time?Image: Grist / Amelia K. Bates
That wasnt always so.
That practice was all but eliminated as colonization and government-sanctionedgenocideforced tribes from nearly 99 percent of their land.
Organizations like the Cultural Burn Association have been working with landowners to set portions of farms and homesteads alight.
But even that isnt enough to match the historic scale or frequency of wildfires there.
Each year, some 45,000 wildfires scorch 1 million acres of the region, which spans 13 states.
In North Carolina, for example, 45 percent of the states 4.7 million homes lie within that zone.
Compounding the challenge, many people consider fire a threat to be extinguished quickly.
Even those willing to ignite their property could wait years to do so.
They cant; they dont have the capacity, said Steed.
Its extensive, it continues to grow, and its predicted to continue that trend in the future.
A third, Pennsylvania, abuts it.
In West Virginia, its nearly 80 percent.
Despite the elevated risk, many homeowners dont recognize the danger.
They dont associate these regions with large wildfires; we think about that happening out west, Donovan said.
Even after the government banished controlled burns, inhabitants of the Sandhills continued using them.
It was just something that happened in the Southeast.
Instead, the land went unmanaged, providing plenty of fuel for a fire.
Some of my neighbors, I dont think they were too happy, she said.
One of them notified the fire department, which knew of the burn ahead of time.
With the trees cleared, their attitudes seem to have changed.
It looks good, she said.
I think theyre OK with it.
Steed worked with Wimberley and the Sandhills PBA before leading the Cultural Burn Association.
The Lumbee tribe hosted itsinaugural burnin December and has lit more than 80 since then.
The fires are the first step in longleaf [pine] restoration, she said.
Then they came out and we planted longleaf plugs and had a native grass planting.
Its also been a cultural touchstone for generations of his people.
Its not solely to reduce fuel loads.
Fire has a heartbeat.
Fire is like a relative.
The intention is to have a relationship.
They werent successful in removing us.
So were also known as keepers of the homeland.
Right now, were starting to awaken.
I think during this awakening, we could actually showcase some of our ancient practices.
We interface with all of the different organizations that are putting fire on the ground, said Steed.
We have to all bring what we can offer to the table and find some common ground.
Finding early adopters among private landowners can be tough, though.
Out of the 14,093 acres burned in 2019, only 340 acres were on private lands.
For that reason, educating people about the need to burn is essential.
Its important to understand why PBAs are so crucial to this story, Wimberley said.
If youre going to get fire on the landscape, youre going to work with private landowners.
Then, wed go over and burn their land.
In regions dominated by trees like Table Mountain pine and the pitch pine, fire is even more important.
Their serotinous cones, coated in a sticky resin, cant open and spread their seeds without it.
And so when we take fire out of those systems, were removing a fundamental process, Donovan said.
We can see basically the entire system change.
If we suppress fire long enough, we shift over to a new key in of ecosystem.
This story was originally published byGrist.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
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