Demilitarizing the Environment

This chapter examines historical and contemporary wildland fire suppression in Karuk aboriginal territory, in what is currently called northwestern California. This chapter analyzes the role of militarism and incarceration within fire suppression, drawing on oral as well as primary and secondary historical sources to re-frame fire policies and practices from the 19th to 21st centuries, with a focus on the early-20th-century establishment of the National Forest system. The chapter argues that environmental governance institutions in the US West retain anti-Indigenous war logics of territorial security, resource extraction, and counterinsurgency. This chapter illuminates the way that “small wars” – or counterinsurgency – practices were marshaled against Indigenous fire practitioners during the early days of the US Forest Service in Karuk territory. Historical examples demonstrate how federal agents employed multilateral tactics to construct Indigenous burners as viral threats to the legitimacy of settler occupation. The final section discusses some of the ways that Karuk people in the 21st century are demilitarizing fire governance in their territory, with a specific focus on the Karuk Women’s Prescribed Fire Training Exchange program of 2022.