Indigenous land management
Los Angeles is located on the traditional lands of the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians. Matthew Teutimez, the tribe’s biologist and a tribal member, said he felt heartache seeing the fires tear through his homelands.
“What has been a tinder box ready to burn has now burned,” Teutimez said. “Unfortunately, it’s something that wasn’t a surprise, but it is a catastrophe.”
From his perspective, non-Indigenous land management practices helped to set the stage for the destructive fires.
Before European settlers arrived, there were fires that benefited the ecosystem, and native plants evolved to live with fire. Indigenous people set small fires to care for the landscape, until the practice was outlawed. The fire suppression model that displaced Indigenous practices allows vegetation to build up and create fuel for wildfires.
Native plants are used to the cycles of extreme wet and dry that are normal in southern California, but invasive plants such as mustard and thistle respond differently, Teutimez said. When intense rainfall happens, invasive plants suck up large amounts of water and quickly grow. When a period of drought follows, the invasive plants dry up and become kindling.
“This kindling was never part of our system, but now you have kindling everywhere,” he said. “Until we take away that kindling, we’re never going to have natural fire cycles that used to benefit our land.”
Climate change is making wet and dry periods more intense, but it is not the only factor in destructive wildfires, he said. “What climate change is doing now is making those cycles a bit more dramatic, a bit more extended, but those cycles have always been here and will always be here,” he said.
Teutimez said the way forward was to restore the Indigenous relationship with the land. That means removing invasive plants and keeping native plants that benefit the ecosystem. “Just by removing non-natives, you are making your landscape more resilient.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/22/los-angeles-wildfires-response
