Returning Fire to the Landscape

A firefighter patrols the perimeter of a prescribed fire within the Chickasaw Nation. Photo taken by Joshua Williams, BIA Eastern Oklahoma Region Fuels Specialist.

BY JOSHUA WILLIAMS AND JESSICA GARDETTO

Thousands of years ago, the Chickasaw Nation’s ancestors settled among the towering forests, dense canebrakes, open prairies, rolling hills, and miles of meandering waterways that make up present-day northern Mississippi and Alabama and western Tennessee and Kentucky. These First Americans became intertwined with the ecologically diverse lands surrounding them, and they used fire as a tool to maintain the landscape.

Fire was a part of the early Chickasaw people’s community and spiritual life. They set fires to remove underbrush and to replenish the forest’s vital nutrients. Burning maintained open prairie, supporting native wildlife that needed both prairie and forest to survive and providing food for the community.

With the expansion of the United States, European settlers flooded into Indian lands. The Chickasaw people’s home was reduced to only the northern part of Mississippi, along with many other negative and tragic impacts. The introduction of private land ownership and other new policies that sought to outlaw aspects of the Tribe’s culture forced the Chickasaw to end their cultural burning practices. These changes enabled invasive species to gain a foothold, like the eastern red cedar, which is crowding out native plants and causing serious ecological issues throughout the area today, impacting residents of both the Chickasaw Nation and Oklahoma. 

The absence of fire, combined with the impacts of climate change, also created a buildup of vegetation that, in recent years, has fueled intense, fast-moving wildfires that are difficult to control and threaten local communities. In March 2022, a massive wildfire burned toward the nearby town of Sulphur, Oklahoma, threatening community infrastructure and Chickasaw Nation properties, causing home, campground and trail evacuations, and closing numerous roadways.

In 2019, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established a Reserved Treaty Right Lands partnership with the Chickasaw Nation. The Reserved Treaty Right Lands program, administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, helps to protect natural and cultural resources important to Tribes on non-tribal lands that are at high risk from wildfire. To date, just over $4 million in Reserved Treaty Rights Lands funding has been invested in the project, including in the creation of three Chickasaw Nation Tribal positions to work on it.

The partnership focuses on reducing excess vegetation that could produce catastrophic wildfires across 20,200 acres of the Blue River and Arbuckle Lake watersheds, which are ecologically important areas. The project involves 4,200 acres of Tribally managed lands, as well as a checkerboard of private, state, and federal lands, with participation from the Chickasaw Nation, National Park Service, Oklahoma Nature Conservancy, Lake of the Arbuckles Watershed Association, Blue River Foundation of Oklahoma, and numerous private landowners.

Since 2019, the partnership has conducted prescribed burns on over 15,580 acres and completed 2,425 acres of mechanical treatments to remove hazardous vegetation. In partnership with the Tribe, skilled Bureau of Indian Affairs wildland fire personnel conducted the prescribed burns. The mechanical treatments were completed by experienced contractors. The areas were completely overtaken by invasive eastern red cedar, which created serious wildfire threats, endangered Chickasaw Nation infrastructure, caused significant wildlife habitat loss, and impacted a host of economic benefits for the Tribe.

Image

A wildland firefighter carefully applies fire while conducting a prescribed burn as part of the partnership between the Bureau of Indian Affairs Eastern Oklahoma Region and the Chickasaw Nation. Photo by Josh Williams,  BIA Eastern Oklahoma Region Fuels Specialist.

The carefully administered fuels treatments have resulted in significant habitat restoration on Chickasaw Nation lands, including areas of cultural and ecological importance to the Tribe. Now, these areas are seeing healthy native plant growth and red cedar reduction.  

The partnership has also educated private landowners about the benefits of conducting prescribed burns on their land. For example, in June 2022, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and the Lake of the Arbuckles Watershed Association hosted a post prescribed fire plant identification workshop for landowners where they learned more about the value and application of prescribed fire.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs Eastern Oklahoma Region Reserved Treaty Right Lands partnership with the Chickasaw Nation created a foundation for multiple partnerships and community engagements with the shared goals of reducing wildfire risk and increasing ecosystem health to make the landscape more resilient when wildfires occur. This multi-level collaboration will continue to improve the lands that are so culturally and economically precious to the Chickasaw Nation and Oklahoma residents, allowing them to live alongside wildfire and renew the landscape as the native Chickasaw Nation’s ancestors did so long ago.

Joshua Williams is a Bureau of Indian Affairs Eastern Oklahoma Region Regional Fuels Specialist. Jessica Gardetto is a Public Affairs Specialist for the Office of Wildland Fire.