War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength: Orwellian Spin on the Red Salmon Complex Fire

This infamous phrase from George Orwell's classic novel, 1984, “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” has almost become trite but true in the age of Trumpian fake news. But example after example keeps coming out of the current Administration and various government agencies under its power of attempting to spin reality its nonsensical opposite. So once again, the overused "Orwellian" adjective will be attached to the latest news release from a USFS Public Information Officer working on the Red Salmon Complex in northern California.

The headline of the agency's news release is: "Dozers on the Fire Line--A Light Handed Approach to Fire Suppression"(sic). The fact is that the lightning-caused Red Salmon Complex is burning in the high country within the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area on the Six Rivers National Forest. This should be the last place dozers are permitted to carve firelines. Indeed, local forest conservationists are shocked and appalled at this heavy-handed mechanical invasion of the designated wilderness. Wilderness is "sacred" in their eyes, and this desecration of designated wilderness is an outrage. It is an outrage.

But wilderness values are not the only thing sacred about this place. The wildfire is burning in the homelands of the Karuk Tribe, on sacred lands that Tribal members use to this day to pray, hunt, fish, and gather traditional foods and medicines.

The USFS news release claims that:

 "The protection of cultural resources during a fire is a high priority, and is undertaken if it does not endanger life, property, or the effectiveness of fire management efforts."

The Red Salmon is burning in one of the most remote areas in northern California, far, far away from people or property. In fact, the only people being endangered are the firefighters--over 1,200 of them at present--risking their health trying to stop a natural fire from burning to the top of a mountain in the middle of a wilderness area. The gravest dangers to crews might be each other given the contagious coronavirus that has killed 170,000 American citizens at this point.

Clearly, "the effectiveness of fire management efforts" takes a priority in the agency's eyes, and that is why dozers in the wilderness was authorized. But the USFS is sensitive about its relations with the Karuk's wildland fire program. according to mutual agreements that have been painstakingly crafted over time with the Karuk, the USFS is utilizing Resource Advisors (READs), Archeology Advisors (ARCHs), and Tribal Preservation Officers (TPOs) from the local tribes to help dozers avoid destroying artifacts that preserve the Karuk's cultural heritage.

I am not an Indigenous person, but it is my understanding that what is held sacred is not just artifacts--it is the land itself and all the life and spirits that inhabit it. Does it make a difference if dozers are able to dodge running over some artifacts while the mountain itself is carved up from “CATlines” that strip the living soil off down to bedrock and leave permanent scars on the landscape? 

In case readers are still not convinced that everything will be okay after dozers do their work, the new release tries to assure people that the damage will be undone:

"Fire Suppression Damage Repair starts before the fire is contained and is a series of immediate postfire actions done to repair the damage and minimize potential soil erosion and other impacts resulting from fire suppression."

All the big machines and techniques employed in repairing dozer damage is described in detail, leaving the definite impression that repair work effectively undoes the damage, that the scars from catlines are erased, and the natural area is effectively restored.

But the reality of possible lasting, irreparable dozer damage and other suppression actions is inadvertently revealed when the USFS news release disclosed that they are utilizing firelines from previous fires in the area. Old dozerline scars remain visible if not fully functional as barren strips of ground. Even more alarming, the news release revealed that, "Sometimes these lines may be kept as future fire breaks in some areas." Thus, there is absolutely no guarantee that the dozer lines can be fully repaired, or even if this will be attempted if the agency wants to make them permanent features for future firefighting.

It's not just the use of dozers in the wilderness that should outrage people who care about protecting the ecological integrity of public wildlands, and the naturalness of designated wilderness. The impact of over a thousand firefighters camped out and working in this sensitive natural area is another concern. READs are doing their best to instill minimum impact camping ethics, but the sheer numbers of crews and all the waste they generate will overwhelm even their best efforts.

Dozers represent the ultimate affront, but they are not the only source of suppression damage being inflicted on the land and the people of the land. It is my understanding that Tribal members who gather the plants for traditional foods and medicines are also concerned about the use of fire retardant chemicals. Several sorties by Very Large Air Tankers (VLATs) laid thousands of gallons of retardant on the mountain, painting the Red Salmon fire area red. These retardant chemicals pollute the pristine waters and are toxic to the fish and other aquatic beings inhabiting them. When these chemicals coat the plants used by the Karuk, this essentially poisons the plants that otherwise would nourish the people.

This place where the Red Salmon Complex is burning is home to frequent lightning-caused fires. In fact, the Red Salmon Complex is nearly surrounded by recent wildfires that offer natural fire breaks to confine the current wildfire's spread. The path not taken was to employ a confinement strategy and staff the fire with a small fire use crew to monitor the fire's progression, and apply management actions to steer the fire where it needed to go. Instead, the agency's total suppression policy mandated aggressive initial and extended attack.

Even more importantly, the Red Salmon Complex is located in the homelands of the Karuk people who used fire to steward the fire-adapted ecosystems of this place. The ridgelines where the dozers are now carving firelines were traditional locations for Karuk firelighters. Had the Karuk people been permitted to continue their cultural burning practices on those ridgelines, there likely would have been no need for dozerlines, airtankers, or an army of firefighters. The wildfire would have run into the black and gone out on its own. "Fighting fire with fire" is the most natural means of managing wildfire, but we should stop calling it "fighting" and start naming it "stewarding."

It's a big deal that the USFS is waging their war against wildfire in the Karuk's homeland, and brought their big iron war machines into the Trinity Alps Wilderness. In essence, it represents the latest invasion and imposition of white settler-colonialism. The Karuk have never ceded their territory to the U.S. government. The suppression of Karuk cultural burning by the USFS policy of fire exclusion represents a form of environmental racism that is invisible to most white people. But, it is time for a paradigm shift that restores the Indigenous model of community fire management, and abandons the current Imperial model State-dominated fire suppression and fire exclusion.

In my opinion, the Karuk Tribe's program of burning for cultural and ecological restoration offers a visionary model with vital lessons for the rest of American society about how to coexist with fire on the land. The Karuk Tribe lacks sufficient financial resources to fully implement their program and plans. Meanwhile, USFS fire managers anticipate they will spend up to $30 million fighting this lightning-caused wilderness fire! Imagine what this amount of money could do to fund Karuk fire management crews, doing work that would make this kind of suppression spectacle unnecessary.

There is another crisis that has been affected by dispatching several hundred firefighters to the Red Salmon Complex: right now there are hundreds of other wildfires burning in northern, central, and coastal California after an epic lightning storm that occurred during an historic heatwave. These fires are killing people and destroying hundreds homes across the state. Firefighters are stretched thin, and there is not enough crews or resources to battle blazes where they are vitally needed. Meanwhile, 1,200 crews are beating themselves up fighting a natural wilderness fire that is skunking around in one of the most remote, uninhabited areas in the state. No new crews are coming in, but the ones already there will be unable to join the fight elsewhere for at least a couple weeks. This is the result of the USFS retrograde act to resurrect the 10am Policy of total aggressive initial attack and full suppression on all fires this year, no matter where they are located. One must wonder if there are any regrets in making the Red Salmon such a huge clusterf*ck of crews now that they are desperately needed elsewhere.

Additionally, given that some crews were dispatched to Red Salmon from two of the nation's hotspots of the novel coronavirus (Florida and Georgia), some crews are likely going to get sick and/or be compelled to quarantine. Firefighters have been seen hanging around local stores and gas stations without wearing masks. Even though local business owners are happy to see some business happening amidst the absence of summer tourists due to the pandemic, other local residents are alarmed at the cavalier attitude of some firefighters casually walking around local stores without wearing masks, risking the spread of the virus to this vulnerable community.

It takes some audacity by the assigned Public Information Officer (PIO) to come up with such positive spin about the decision to let dozers churn through Karuk sacred lands and trammel through the Trinity Alps Wilderness. The PIO is just doing their job, and Orwellianism is a tried and true propaganda technique for persuading the public to believe in an opposite, upside-down version of reality. Thus, dozers are a "light handed" suppression tool.

The real blame for this debacle lies with the USFS Line Officers starting with the Chief's Office who decreed a total suppression policy, to the California Regional Forester who authorized dozers in wilderness areas, to the Forest Supervisors who asked for and eagerly received a suppression army on their forest. The real heroes are the READs, ARCHs, and TPOs who are doing their best to influence operations planners and sensitize firefighters on how to mitigate the damage on cultural and natural resources. Let's hope all the crews stay safe, leave quickly without any casualties or COVID infections, and move to where they are desperately needed now. Let's hope that some of them have been touched by the spirit of the place in the land of the "fix the world" people.