"SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. - For most of her life, Thea Maria Carlson did not like fire. Even though she had studied earth systems at Stanford University and knew, intellectually, that burning had an environmental purpose in her home of California, she still wanted nothing to do with it.
In 2015, the Valley Fire consumed a path toward her home in the rugged hills of Sonoma County, destroying small towns along the way. After firefighters extinguished that blaze – before it reached her part of the oak- and redwood-dappled Mayacamas Mountains – her neighbors began talking about how to prepare for the next wildfire. Some suggested they should burn the land themselves to mitigate any future blaze.
Ms. Carlson was unsure.
She knew that intentional fires were nothing new here; Indigenous people in California burned land for generations, until they were harshly persecuted by the state for doing so. Ranchers and other rural landowners have also long used fire as a way of stewarding their properties. But Ms. Carlson was hesitant to set fire to the land where she lived."
Stephanie Hanes reports for the Christian Science Monitor October 5, 2025.
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