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Mountain West News Bureau
The Mountain West News Bureau is a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, KJZZ in Arizona, KUNR in Nevada, Nevada Public Radio, and Wyoming Public Media, with support from affiliate stations across the region.

With reforms in place, California's Karuk Tribe works to reestablish cultural burning as 'common practice'

Jacob Tripp pulls a hose along a burn near a pump house in Orleans, California. 
Murphy Woodhouse
/
Boise State Public Radio
Jacob Tripp pulls a hose along a burn near a pump house in Orleans, California. 

For millennia, Indigenous peoples have intentionally set fires to care for the land. Colonization and policy largely put an end to those practices, though the tradition endured. As the Mountain West News Bureau's Murphy Woodhouse reports, a new law in California has opened the door to restore cultural burning — a potential model for the rest of the West. Woodhouse follows the Karuk Tribe on cultural burns designed to improve community and environmental health.

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Murphy Woodhouse