For most of human history, fire was a tool—a companion in the work of tending landscapes. Indigenous peoples across every fire-prone continent developed sophisticated practices for burning at the right times, in the right ways, to keep ecosystems vibrant and resilient.

Then, for about a century, we tried something different. We declared war on fire. We built institutions dedicated to its suppression, treated every flame as an enemy, and convinced ourselves that healthy forests were forests that never burned. The results have been catastrophic: fuel loads accumulating to dangerous levels, ecosystems declining without the fire they evolved with, and wildfires of unprecedented severity.

The path forward isn't simply letting fire return unmanaged—our landscapes have changed too much for that. It's developing what we might call fire stewardship: the capacity to work with fire as a regenerative force, informed by both traditional knowledge and contemporary ecological science. This requires a fundamental shift in how we relate to fire—from adversary to ally, from suppression to partnership.

Fire is not an external disturbance that happens to ecosystems—it's an ecological process that happens within them. Many landscapes evolved with regular fire over millions of years. Their plant communities, soil biology, and nutrient cycles are adapted to and dependent upon periodic burning.

In fire-adapted ecosystems, regular low-intensity burns perform essential functions. They cycle nutrients locked in dead vegetation back into the soil. They clear accumulated debris that would otherwise fuel catastrophic fires. They create the mosaic of habitat types that support biodiversity—open areas for some species, dense vegetation for others, everything in between.

Many plants have fire-dependent reproduction strategies. Some seeds require the heat of fire to germinate. Some trees need fire to open their cones. Some species resprout vigorously from their roots after burning, using stored energy to rapidly reclaim territory. Remove fire from these systems and you don't get more life—you get decline.

The suppression era created what fire ecologists call fire debt: the accumulated fuel that should have burned but didn't. In some forests, a century of suppression means fuel loads ten times higher than historical norms. When fire finally comes—and it always does—it burns with an intensity these ecosystems never evolved to handle.

Understanding fire as process rather than event changes everything about how we approach it. The question shifts from 'how do we prevent fire?' to 'how do we ensure fire happens in ways that regenerate rather than destroy?' This is the foundation of fire stewardship.

Takeaway

Fire-adapted ecosystems don't need protection from fire—they need fire to happen in the right ways. Suppression doesn't prevent fire; it defers it while making inevitable burns more destructive.

For tens of thousands of years, indigenous peoples actively managed landscapes with fire. This wasn't occasional or accidental burning—it was sophisticated stewardship based on deep observation across generations.

Aboriginal Australians developed cultural burning practices that maintained the health of country across an entire continent. Different vegetation types were burned at different seasons, in different patterns, at different frequencies. The result was a mosaic landscape of extraordinary biodiversity, resistant to catastrophic fire because fuel never accumulated to dangerous levels.

Native American fire practices similarly shaped the landscapes that European colonizers encountered and mistook for wilderness. The open forests and rich prairies of pre-colonial North America were not natural accidents—they were the product of intentional fire management over millennia.

This knowledge encodes information that Western science is only beginning to understand: which conditions produce regenerative burns versus destructive ones, how fire behavior changes across seasons and terrain, how different vegetation responds to different fire regimes. It represents a data set of observations far longer than any scientific study.

The revitalization of indigenous fire practices offers perhaps our best path forward. Organizations bringing together traditional knowledge holders and fire management professionals are demonstrating that cultural burning can be reintroduced even in landscapes transformed by colonization and suppression. But this requires genuine partnership, not extraction—supporting indigenous communities in reclaiming their role as fire stewards rather than simply appropriating techniques.

Takeaway

Indigenous fire knowledge isn't historical curiosity—it's sophisticated land management refined over millennia. The landscapes we inherited were shaped by this knowledge, and their health may depend on its revival.

Fire stewardship cannot happen at the individual property level alone. Fire moves across boundaries. Smoke affects whole regions. The decisions one landowner makes shape the fire risk for everyone nearby. Effective fire relationship requires community-scale planning and coordination.

The starting point is understanding your place's fire regime—the pattern of fire frequency, intensity, and seasonality that your ecosystem evolved with. Mediterranean climates have different fire needs than temperate forests. Grasslands burn differently than shrublands. Your community's fire strategy should reflect your landscape's specific fire ecology.

Prescribed burning programs represent the most direct application of fire stewardship. Communities can work with fire professionals and, where possible, indigenous fire practitioners to reintroduce appropriate fire to landscapes that need it. This requires regulatory frameworks that support good fire rather than prohibiting all fire, and liability structures that don't make prescribed burning legally impossible.

At the property and neighborhood level, defensible space design creates conditions where homes can survive fire and firefighters can safely work. This isn't just vegetation clearance—it's thoughtful design that maintains ecosystem function while reducing fire risk. Native fire-resistant plants, strategic fuel breaks, building materials and placement that don't invite fire.

Community fire planning also means preparing for when fire comes, as it will. Evacuation routes, communication systems, shelter locations, mutual aid agreements. The goal isn't preventing fire but developing the collective capacity to live with it—to let good fire do its work while protecting what needs protecting. This is what fire stewardship looks like at the community scale.

Takeaway

Fire stewardship is inherently collective work. Your property exists within a landscape that burns as a whole, and meaningful fire relationship requires coordination, shared knowledge, and community-scale planning.

Developing a healthy relationship with fire is one of the essential tasks of regenerative living in fire-prone landscapes. It requires moving beyond the fear-based suppression paradigm that has dominated for a century and toward something more like partnership.

This work happens at multiple scales simultaneously. At the landscape level, it means supporting the revival of indigenous fire practices and appropriate prescribed burning programs. At the community level, it means developing fire plans that reflect local ecology and build collective capacity. At the personal level, it means designing properties that can coexist with fire.

The alternative—continuing to suppress fire while fuel loads grow and climate change intensifies fire seasons—leads only to more catastrophic burns. Fire stewardship offers a different path: working with fire's regenerative potential rather than against its inevitable presence.