Over a century of fire suppression has changed California from a fire-ecology to a fire-climate; meaning its continued suppression and the fear it generates makes up the atmosphere we live in, the air and smoke we breathe. The indigenous practice of low-intensity, seasonal burning has in the last five years become repopularized under the jurisdiction of Federal, State, and Local governments. These are inevitably the same institutions who once criminalized and achieved various levels of erasure of the cultural knowledge systems they now rely upon.

With this research, we seek to draw a base-map of the complex web of relations that make up the prescribed fire environment in Northern California, with a primary focus on Sonoma County — a leading region on the West Coast for the re-emergence of burn practices, and one that is dense with differing and often conflicting timescales and interests of its inhabitants.

Our goal is to propose enhancements and provide recommendations on how the public and varied stakeholders can conduct themselves in the social environment of fire with more clarity and better effect.

We also aim to express the volatile essence of protocols, embodying a state where physical properties and ancient meanings intertwine. Like seeds that lay dormant in a forest until fire sweeps through and activates them, we want protocols that crack open and allow for autopoietic growth.

Nathalia is a researcher, artist, and engineer based in São Paulo and Northern California. Her work spans disciplines including public health, governance systems, ethics, and the metabolic interactions between humans, emergent technologies, and culture.

Over the past decade, she has managed pioneering web3 public good experiments and continues to be humbled by the complexities of resource intelligence. Her recent work includes co-authoring the Token Engineering Stakeholder Study and collaborating with the School For Inclement Weather, the International Institute of Psychoanalysis, and various web and place-based collectives.

Jiordi inhabits Jewish and Mexican lineages of the Northern Sonoran desert and Eastern Europe. Attentive to birds, patterns and forms of learning that most permit laughter, mystery, and contradiction, his practice orbits crafting pedagogies for crumbling futures. He offers Creative Direction for We Will Dance with Mountains and co-curates programming for climate-mutation at the School for Inclement Weather in Northern California. Through the guidance of the Kashia Pomo Cultural Department, Jiordi has been trained as a prescribed fire-practitioner and forest technician to support the revitalization of fire-knowledge in Kashia tribal territory. He is a CARX Trainee, Fire Forward Fellow, and a Steering Committee member of the Good Fire Alliance in Sonoma County.