This tribe was barred from cultural burning for decades — then a fire hit their community

The land near Yosemite National Park had been tended by Irene Vasquez's family for decades. They took care of their seven acres by setting small fires to thin vegetation and help some plants to grow.

But the steep, chaparral-studded slopes surrounding the property hadn't seen fire since Vasquez and fellow members of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation were barred from practicing cultural burning on a wider scale some 100 years before.

When a wildfire swept through in July, the dense vegetation stoked flames that destroyed Vasquez's home and transformed the land into a scarred moonscape. With that, she became one of many Indigenous residents to watch her ancestral territory burn in recent years, despite knowing the outcome could have been different.

"If we were able to impart that wisdom and knowledge to European settlers, to the agencies, to not stop our burning, we would be in a way different place," Vasquez said.

Cultural burning — the practice of using controlled fires to tend the landscape — was once widespread among many Indigenous groups, but ended with the arrival of European settlers.

Now, many experts say the lack of regular, low-intensity fire in some California ecosystems has contributed to an overgrowth of vegetation that has made