Good Fire
For thousands of years, Indigenous people in the Willamette Valley used fire as a tool to care for the land, support food and cultural plants, improve habitat, and maintain healthy, open landscapes. Today, prescribed fire can help restore some of those same ecological processes in oak woodlands, prairies, and other fire-adapted habitats. When used carefully and intentionally, fire can reduce invasive vegetation, recycle nutrients, support native plants and wildlife, and contribute to healthier, more resilient landscapes.
Burning to Heal
The Almeda Fire devastated Southern Oregon, burning over 2,500 homes. Three years later, a landowner, fire professionals, and community members work to bring fire back in a positive way. Burning to Heal, by filmmaker Michael Sherman, explores our relationship with fire, its role in land health, and the challenges of using prescribed burns to protect communities while benefiting the environment.
On June 29, 2023, members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde led a cultural burn at our property, Smithfield Oaks. This event was both a training opportunity for Tribal youth interns participating in the Traditional Ecological Inquiry Program (TEIP), and also an opportunity to rekindle the relationship between these oaks and fire, and the Tribes who have stewarded this land with seasonal burns since time immemorial. The video takes you on a journey on how and why cultural burning is used as a land management tool by the Tribes throughout the Willamette Valley, and shows you what this experience was like on June 29, 2023 at Smithfield Oaks.
Smithfield Oaks Cultural Burn
