- What do you think about when you hear the word heat?

Do you think about the sun, warmth and fire, or being unbearably sticky and uncomfortable on a hot summer day?

Well, heat is all of these things and more here in California.

It brings us the bounty of food we grow in the Central Valley, and gorgeous beach days along the coast.

But let's not forget it can also bring danger and devastation, especially in a changing climate.

So it's no surprise that California today has a complicated relationship with heat.

It doesn't have to be that way.

In this episode, we're going to speak with Blaine McKinnon, Battalion Chief of the Yurok Tribe, and Kelly Turner, associate Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, about how working with communities can help make heat bearable and even something to celebrate.

Okay, so let's talk about two types of heat, fire and excessive temperatures.

Most of California has a Mediterranean climate, meaning it has mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers.

These conditions make fire and heat a significant aspect of this climate type.

California is seeing more drought conditions, higher heat, and more disaster-producing fires that destroy homes and lives.

Indigenous communities successfully managed fires by burning for generations.

But, today, between encroaching development, bureaucratic forest management, and especially global warming, things have been getting out of control.

There's a lot to learn from listening to communities, especially about their deep-rooted knowledge of the environment around them.

Our correspondent, Charles Loi, sat down with Blaine to chat about how global warming is impacting the lands he and his ancestors call home.

- It's a huge change in a short amount of time, and I think that is also leading to the fuel loading, because with increased moistures, we're seeing more vegetation.

With decreased amount of moisture, we're seeing, you know, these 10, 15-year droughts, so it's drying out the trees, they're going in dormant, they don't have as much fuel moisture to where it could at least sustain a certain amount of fire.

They don't have that resiliency as what they usually would, and now we're seeing just every year it's just getting hotter.

- [Meg] With increases in temperatures and drought, it's more and more important to encourage the natural resiliency of the land.

The traditional methods of burning the land to reduce fire intensity provides important lessons for forest management today.

- We're burning to help reduce the vegetation in the forest.

We're doing it for wildlife.

When we burn, it's more of like a prayer for us, almost like, you know, what some civilizations would think going to church.

It's similar to us for cultural burning, is that we're going out there paying respect for the land.

I think a lot of people think that fire is a negative thing, that it's a devastating thing, because when you turn on the TV during the summer, especially in California, you see, you know, large wildfires that are burning 100,000 acres, 200,000 acres, that are burning people's homes, that are leading to deaths.

So you see all these negative things, so I understand it's a reaction that they're seeing, because their connection with fire that if you're not a culture practitioner, if you don't have that good relationship with fire, that's your only connection.

I don't see fire as a negative thing.

I understand it can be in the wrong circumstances, and that really is presented because of the lack of fire.

So we have to use fire in order to get to a place to where fire isn't something bad, isn't catastrophic.

- Communities, like Blaine's, have shown, through generations, that traditional burning practices can prevent devastating fires.

We also spoke with Kelly and Christian about another form of heat, extreme temperatures, and how community holds the key to creating equitable solutions in a changing climate.

- We're sitting in an area across from a mobile home park over here where most of the people work in agriculture.

So all day long they're exposed to heat, they come back home, they're exposed to heat, and they never have a chance for their core temperature to really go down, and that has complications for exacerbating other health conditions.

It's just an all-day-long chronic condition that this community has to deal with and is hidden because a lot of wealthier places, we don't have to deal with it in the same way.

- How can we respond to this need that is being raised from the community we're engaging around the topic of extreme heat?

I think what we're interested in doing, so less so of adaptation, but really getting in front of the issue.

- We have a chance, because development is coming, to kind of bake shade into plans the way it isn't right now.

- I think every other weekend it's like a warning.

And so it's really important, particularly for this area, it's important that we take action soon.

And so, for me, it's a personal vendetta even against the inequity of, you know, how different communities experience these heat waves.

- Fire is is a great tool, a great relationship that we have with it.

It's not just a pathway to achieve something, but it's connection with fire that connects with the land, that we're connecting through fire with the land.

It's a way to walk in our footsteps of our ancestors, because this is what they did.

They came out and they burned, they did the same things that we are doing now.

They're using warm-wood drip torches.

They're using those same tools thousand years ago as I'm using now and that connection of, you know, my great-great-great-great great grandpa, We are stewards of the land.

We are here to take care of the land, and part of that is burning.

So we just got to work together more.

- You see also the sort of generational ripple of caring about the issue.

And so that's a really fun, you know, thing for me to look back and look at pictures of these kids that were so young eight years ago and literally just like making all this noise running around their parents, and now they're like the young adults that are leading the conversation.

- So what we've learned is that extreme temperatures and fire are part of the very fabric of California.

It's local community-first solutions that are leading the way to a better future so that all Californians can live in harmony with heat.

Till next time, happy exploring.

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