Southern Sierra Miwuk preserve cultural heritage after last year’s Oak Fire

Fallen tree trunks and branches cover a road during the Oak Fire near Midpines, northeast of Mariposa, Calif., on July 23, 2022.

David McNew/AFP via Getty Images

The Oak Fire, which burned roughly 20,000 acres west of Yosemite National Park last summer, was devastating to the area’s Indigenous tribes — including the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. The tribe is headquartered in Mariposa, California, a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills close to the national park.

“It really hit our community hard,” said Tara Fouch-Moore, a member of the Southern Sierra Miwuk’s tribal council. “We lost 127 households.”

The Oak Fire destroyed much more than property.

“These super fires, they burn so hot,” said Jazzmyn Gegere Brochini, the tribe’s cultural resource preservation manager. “The Oak Fire disintegrated absolutely everything in its path.”

Climate change brought on by the burning of fossil fuels has exacerbated, in part, the frequency and the intensity of wildfires. Such catastrophic fires have decimated culturally significant sites and treasures, raising questions about how to best protect them for the future.

It’s something the Southern Sierra Miwuk have had to grapple with.

A forest is left decimated by the Oak Fire near Mariposa, Calif, on July 24, 2022.

David McNew/AFP via Getty Images

Gegere Brochini and Fouch-Moore said traditional plants like elderberry, deergrass and sedge used in native cooking, medicine and basket-making were destroyed by the Oak Fire — along…