Fire Returns to My Backyard · Episode 3 of 10 · 20 min
The Gardeners
For thousands of years the Esselen, Salinan, and Ohlone burned these mountains every five to fifteen years, until a 1793 Spanish ban and the mission system broke the practice. One Esselen family kept burning into the 1970s, until the Forest Service ordered them to stop, and their elders predicted catastrophic fires. Recent land returns to the tribe close the story.
Who's who
- Tom Little Bear Nason+3 more episodesEsselen elder and tribal chairman; family burned into the 1970s
- José Joaquín de ArrillagaSpanish governor who banned Indian burning in 1793
- Isabel Meadows+1 more episodeLast fluent speaker of Esselen and Rumsen
- Juan Crespí+1 more episodePortola expedition diarist who recorded burned grasslands
- Miguel Costansó+1 more episodePortola expedition diarist who recorded burned grasslands
- Kent LightfootArchaeologist studying Indigenous land management
- M. Kat Anderson+1 more episodeEthnoecologist and author of Tending the Wild
- Alfred KroeberAnthropologist who declared the Esselen extinct in 1899
Where it happens
- Pico Blanco, California+1 more episodeWhite limestone peak, center of the Esselen world; returned 2025
- Eagle Peak, Little Sur River, California1,199 acres, first land returned to the Esselen in 2020
- Quiroste Valley, CaliforniaArchaeological evidence of frequent cultural burning
- Santa Lucia Mountains, California+2 more episodesRidges and oak woodlands tended by fire
Timeline
- 1769The Portola expedition records recently burned grasslands along the coast.
- 1793Governor Arrillaga bans Indian burning, California's first fire-suppression policy.
- 1899Kroeber declares the Esselen culturally extinct; he recants in 1955.
- 1970sThe Forest Service orders the Nason family to stop burning.
- July 2020The 1,199-acre Adler Ranch (Eagle Peak) is conveyed to the Esselen Tribe.
- January 2025The 327-acre Pico Blanco property is returned to the tribe.
Still debated
How widespread Indigenous burning was is argued. Ethnoecologists see systematic landscape management; some chaparral ecologists say it clustered near villages and travel routes, with lightning driving fire in remote terrain.
