Little Fires Program

From left to right: Crystal Cox, Tara Fouch-Moore, and Irene Vasquez at the Little Fires burn in December 2025.

Luke Schaftary

 

Tribal Relations

• Wahhoga Village Restoration
• Traditional Plant Gathering Agreement
• Yosemite Ancestral Stewards Crew
• Black Oak Stewardship
• Little Fires Program & Cultural Burning
• Traditional Events
• Tribal Archeology & Cultural Heritage
• Tribal Resources

For thousands of years, fire has been a key part of Yosemite’s landscape. Native people observed the benefits of natural fire and learned from it. They developed uses for controlled burns, from clearing dead brush, to stimulating plant growth, to encouraging biodiversity, and more. Through their burns, Native people created a beautiful and rich landscape full of food, medicine, basketry materials, and other important resources. 

Following the establishment of the park, cultural burning was restricted, preventing Native people from practicing their traditional stewardship techniques. Yosemite’s forests changed. They became denser in vegetation. Fire-adapted species like the iconic black oaks were overtaken by fire-intolerant species like white fir. Brush and other dead and down wood accumulated, turning the landscape into a tinderbox ready for ignition.  

Although fire is still an important element within Yosemite’s landscape, it too often takes the form of dangerous wildfire, threating keystone species throughout the park, such as the famous giant sequoias. 

In response to this threat, Yosemite National Park is working with the Traditionally Associated Tribes to bring Tribal-led cultural burns into regular management. Through the Little Fires Program, the Park aims to support Tribal-led fire stewardship throughout Yosemite Valley and, eventually, beyond. These Tribal crews work toward more resilient and healthy forest ecosystems through all steps of the burning process. They select sites, work on fuel reduction, and conduct controlled burns.  

 

 

Two members of a Little Fires crew prepare for a burn by reducing fuel load.

Luke Schaftary

Cultural Burning and the Land

Cultural burning is when Indigenous peoples intentionally set small, controlled fires for cultural services. It might be done to promote plant growth, clear underbrush for hunting, control pest populations, and more. Native people across the country have managed their environment with fire for thousands of years. The open, park-like oak woodlands of Yosemite Valley that European settlers documented when they first arrived in the valley were not “natural,” but rather orchards created and maintained by the Indigenous peoples who lived here.

Most, if not all, ecosystems in the United States evolved with fire. Lack of understanding led to over a century of fire suppression policy, which means Native peoples were forced to stop conducting cultural burns. This policy has led to increased risk of bigger, more damaging wildfires, reduction of biodiversity, the disappearance of fire-dependent species and ecosystems, and many other consequences. Here in Yosemite National Park, we see the repercussions of fire suppression in wildfires like the Rim Fire, the disappearance of black oak, and the increasing risk of a sudden oak death epidemic.

 

But what about the dangers of fire?

Don’t worry! Controlled burns, which includes both cultural fire and prescribed fire, have a lot of health- and safety-related benefits. Studies have found that controlled burns can reduce the severity of wildfire by up to 72%, that they produce only 17% of the harmful PM2.5 smoke wildfires produce, and that over time, repeated controlled burns can improve the ability of a forest to sequester carbon.  

In other words, controlled fire—whether prescribed or cultural—make the landscapes of Yosemite National Park even safer and healthier in the long term. 

 

Two members of the Little Fires program standing in front of a fire at the December 2025 burn.

Luke Schaftary

A lot of work and knowledge goes into controlled burns. The first step is to actually choose a good site to burn. Once that’s done, crews may need to remove a lot of the woody debris in a burn area to keep the fire from getting too big. Once the site is prepped and ready for the burn, practitioners and personnel need to make sure the weather conditions and other environmental factors are right. At the burn itself, Native practitioners may use traditional methods to start the fire. Cultural burns also involve ceremony and community.

As of early 2026, the Traditionally Associated Tribes and the park are working together to plan cultural burns in the park. The Meh-Su Crew from the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation and the Tuolumne Me-Wuk Corps from the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians worked hard through the summer and fall of 2025 to prepare for the first Little Fires burn in December. Members of the other Traditionally Associated Tribes also participate in the burns when they’re available. Now, the two crews, who may be joined by other crews in the future, continue preparing more sites across the valley for healing fire.

 

Duration:

7 minutes, 24 seconds

Local American Indians, park fire managers, and blackberry weeders team up to save a meadow in danger of losing its unique native plants.