Introducing the Chumash
Good Fire Project
New Initiative Bringing Back
Cultural Burns to Indigenous Lands
By Elaine Sanders | July 17, 2025
Read more of our Fire Resiliency feature here.
Southern California has long been associated with smoky skies. Members of the Portola expedition in the late 1700s traveled through Chumash villages in what is now Goleta to Point Conception, noting many burnt sections of land from Chumash fires. During this same time period, naturalist José Longinos Martínez also observed Chumash in the Santa Barbara Channel region burning land to hunt rabbits and to cultivate nutritious plant shoots.
The landscape also evolved to thrive with these fires, with many native plants that germinate more successfully after a fire, such as lupine and the scrub oak.
Banned from lighting the landscape in 1792 by the Spanish, some indigenous Chumash are now reintegrating traditional burning practices back into their historic lands — spanning the coast from San Luis Obispo to Malibu and stretching inland to the San Joaquin Valley — through an initiative called the Chumash Good Fire Project.
Already, the organization has collaborated on training burns at UCSB’s Sedgwick Reserve in the Santa Ynez Valley and at the Dangermond Preserve on Point Conception.
What Is ‘Good Fire’?
“Good fire,” also referred to as “beneficial fire,” is an umbrella term used to reference fire that has a positive outcome on the environment, whether that is protecting homes from being destroyed when the next wildfire breaks out, or rejuvenating the soil for native plant species to thrive.
It may be helpful to think of good fire on a spectrum: On one end, there are prescribed burns, usually led by the U.S. Forest Service and Santa Barbara County Fire Department, with the goal of removing fuel — grasses, brush, fallen leaves — from the landscape. On the other end are cultural burns, which are led and directed by trained indigenous practitioners to cultivate basket-weaving materials and traditional medicines, preserve food sources, and practice spiritual ceremonies.
What Is the Process?
From state-level permits to local approvals, the process starts with paperwork. Depending on ownership of the land, sometimes even a full California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) analysis is required. Some of the permitting has been relaxed with the implementation of State Senate Bill 310 in January, which allows certain exceptions for qualifying indigenous groups for cultural burns.
Then comes identifying a site and cultivating relationships with landowners or managers, as well as taking into account the variations of the landscape. Fire stewards categorize plants and natural features to determine how to prepare the vegetation, where to burn, at what temperature, and for how long.
“It really has to be through inputs from a broad range of people in an indigenous community,” said Teresa Romero, one of the main leaders behind the Chumash Good Fire Project. “They know what they’re gathering out there and what they’re seeing, what they’re not seeing, and what needs to burn.”
Romero can trace her accessory back to the Chumash villages of Tipu and Shalawa, in the areas now known as Santa Margarita and Montecito, respectively. She’s been working with tribes since the 1990s, focused on climate change and environmental work in Michigan and around California, including as the environmental director for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She also now runs the nonprofit Native Coast Action Network.
Romero remembers examining a fire scar and noticing traditional Chumash food plants growing from the charred earth that had not been seen in many, many years. “There was viable seed that had germinated [from plants] that had not been visible on the landscape for 150-200 years,” said Romero.
Chumash Good Fire allows fire stewards and researchers to experiment and observe how different burning methods alter the environment, providing insight into best practices for cultivating native species.
The seven fire stewards that Romero has trained are currently surveying a potential burn site in the grasslands of Taft Gardens and Nature Preserve, located in the foothills of Ojai. Romero and the fire stewards will be monitoring brodiaea, an important Chumash food source, and creating two test plots. The stewards will reseed one plot before burning, and the other will be left to its own devices to see how the flowering plant responds to the flames.
‘Cultural Fire Is a Community Effort’
Romero has been organizing since 2019 to get the project off the ground, with help coming from many sources. She has partnered with groups such as the Community Environmental Council and LegacyWorks to research best practices and to secure funding, including a $25,000 grant from the Santa Barbara Foundation in 2021.
According to the LegacyWorks Group’s Central Coast Region Co-Director Ellen Kwiatkowski, hundreds of hours of interviews with fire ecologists, botanists, members of County Fire, policymakers, and more were compiled to make a comprehensive guide of considerations and plans to bring back Chumash cultural fire.
They are also working with the Wildfire Resilience Coalition, which helps connect Romero with local, state, and federal management projects, as well as aiding in the ever-present need for funding.
Since the indigenous knowledge of firekeeping was almost extinguished, members of tribes from across California and the U.S. have banded together to create the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network, established by the Nature Conservancy. Romero has made connections with the founders of this initiative and the Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance, accessing the wealth of indigenous knowledge and training resources from intertribal networks.
Fire stewards go through a rigorous mix of western fire management and indigenous training; online course work, pack training, practice fires called TREX burns. Organized by Romero, UC Davis PhD student Carlie Domingues, and other local fire community members, trainees learn different ideologies of applying fire during TREX burns, giving them a well-rounded education.
“I do think we’re going to experience more wildfires here, and we can’t get the good fire on the ground quick enough,” said Romero. “When we create resiliency in our landscape, we’re creating resiliency in ourselves, too.”
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