Studying Fire & Topography

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Lesson 1

Studying Fire & Topography

Fire

Ecology

& the Human Relationship

Exploring Fire and Traditional Ecological

Knowledge, Biodiversity, Land Use History,

Climate Change, and Social Impacts

Oregon place-based, Native informed,

interdisciplinary science curriculum

Grades

4-10

Fire Ecology and the Human Relationship:

Exploring Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Biodiversity,

Land Use History, Climate Change, and Social Impacts

A Place-based, Native informed, interdisciplinary Science Curriculum

For Oregon students in grades 4th - 10th

Many thanks to the people who have provided support, research, time, and

care for the creation of this curriculum

•

Funding provided by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians

• Written by the Vesper Meadow Education Program: Jeanine Moy and Brian Geier

• Edited by: Joseph Scott, Debra Agnew, Katie Boehnlein, Chris Adlam, Robert Kentta, Tara

Laidlaw, Stasie Maxwell, Nancy Austin.

•

Art: Zoe Keller, Sarah F. Burns

•

Layout and design: Casey House

•

Additional support from Alexi Lovechio, Mary Kwart, the Gray Family Foundation, the

Roundhouse Foundation, Mary Norris-Preyer Foundation

The Vesper Meadow Vision

Vesper Meadow Education Program is building a culture of land stewardship and nature connection.

We demonstrate biocultural restoration through Tribal partnership, diverse partnerships for land

stewardship, community involvement in scientific monitoring, and sharing our work through natureinspired art and creation of educational materials. Our work provides an integrated approach to

cultivating and sustaining the human-nature relationship.

Acknowledging Land and Relationship

Core to our vision is the belief that ecological restoration is synonymous with cultural revival. It is important

to recognize that every part of what is now known as the U.S. is someone’s traditional territory. We honor the

people of the land on which we work: Latgawa, Takelma, Shasta, and Klamath, and recognize the legacy of

federally-sponsored genocide and forced removal. Many of these people, now members of the Confederated

Tribes of Siletz Indians and Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, await the fulfillment of rights reserved

under ratified treaties. We work to reduce the adverse effects of colonization on the land, and support selfidentified goals through partnership with Indigenous leaders and local Tribes.

All lessons and associated materials can be found online via

the Vesper Meadow Education Program at VesperMeadow.org

and at the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians at ctsi.nsn.us

and The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians

Contact VesperMeadow.org for Questions

Table of Contents

iii

Preface: Fires Past and Future, for Our People and Our Lands

Map of Vesper Meadow

Foreward: Indigenous Fire Science

Introduction

Lessons and Teaching Materials

4th-5th Grade

Lesson 1: Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Topography and Fire

• Worldview Worksheet

• Fire on the Landscape Presentation

Lesson 2: Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Fire and Biodiversity, part one

• Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

• Species Story Worksheet

Lesson 3: Fire Nourishes the Land, the Land Nourishes Us

Fire as an Agricultural Tool, part one

• First Food Plant Cards

• Hint Cards

• Note Sheet

• Worksheet

6th-8th Grade

Lesson 4: Black to Green Creature Collage

Fire and Biodiversity, part two

• Black to Green Landscape

• Wildlife Cards

• Wildfire Severity Pictures Presentation

Lesson 5: Burning for Basketry: Engineering Ecosystems with Fire

Fire as an Agricultural Tool, part two

• Discussion Points Presentation

• Worksheet

• Coloring Pages

Lesson 6: Leading the Way with TEK: Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon

Fire and Land Use History, part one

• Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon Presentation

• Land Stewardship Activity Sheets

Lesson 7: When to Burn? Climate Change and Oregon’s Fire Season

Climate Change and Fire, part one

• Climate Change and Oregon’s Fire Season Presentation

• When to Burn? Worksheets and Answer Key

• Fire Mandala Coloring Pages

105

Lesson 8: Community Preparation and Resilience

Fire and Social Issues, part one

• Case Study Pages

• Worksheets

9th-10th Grade

113

Lesson 9: Fire Policy and Practices of the Last 200 Years

Fire and Land Use History, part two

• Shaping Forests and Fire Timeline

127

Lesson 10: Climate Change: Mitigating, Adapting, and Taking Action

Climate Change and Fire, part two

• Mitigating, Adapting, and Taking Action Presentation

• Civic Engagement for Climate Action Extension Worksheet

143

Lesson 11: Wildfire Vulnerability and Climate Justice, What Do You Meme?

Fire and Social Issues, part two

• Vulnerable Communities Research Worksheet

• Meme Generator

153

156

158

159

Glossary

References

Further Resources

Standards Chart

Preface

Fires Past and Future, for Our People and Our Lands

For thousands of years our ancestral Tribal peoples of Western Oregon have lived not just on the land,

but with the land, coaxing it into peak production for diverse resources, habitat types and the species that

thrive in those diverse environs. Fire can be a destructive force when it is exposed to heavy fuel loads,

extreme dry conditions, or habitats that are not adapted and resilient to a healthy fire cycle.

These interactions with our landscapes did not happen by chance. They were taught through generations

of practice and observation: which fire or other treatments were beneficial, what times and conditions

produced safe renewal and abundance. Always there were specific targeted goals: to enhance traditional

food plants, to maintain hunting grounds, to tend basket materials, etc. Fires had many uses and different

effects at different times of the year. Useful burns could fire-proof village areas in the event of wildfire, or

drive deer and elk to harvest. For some of our ancestors, ceremonial burning was believed to signal the

salmon that it was time for them to leave the ocean and return up the rivers to spawn.

Fire acts differently based on fuel types and the moisture content, whether it is on flat ground or steep slopes,

whether it first contacts fuels at the top of a ridge and then creeps down toward the bottom, or starts at the bottom

and races to the top. Our people knew these things and employed that knowledge in appropriate application.

We live in a zone unique for its biodiversity with diverse fire-adapted habitats such as oak savannah and

subalpine meadows that are home to a variety of low-growing forbs (bunchgrasses) and bulb plants. Many

of these plants thrive with frequent, low intensity burning practices which keep their surroundings open

and prevents shrubs and trees from outcompeting them with shade or the development of a thick layer of

leaf litter.

We also live in times where our landscapes have experienced lots of rapid changes, and now our climate

itself is also experiencing fluctuations and extremes that are not typical for our region. Our landscapes

have been dependent on us, and they remain so. We must have a healthy respect for the destructive

potential of fire, while not being so fearful that we think all fire is bad for the landscape.

This curriculum is meant to introduce students to the subject and develop understandings, but is not

meant for anything other than collaborative, planned and approved uses of the concepts and information

contained herein.

The dire emergencies that we and our landscapes face in this century cry out for considered, collaborative,

devoted action, and for lessons born of long experience. We have ancestral knowledge (both passed down

through the generations to today, and from interviews with elders of generations past). We have modern

sciences to assist us. We have historic resources, such as careful work of the early General Land Office

(GLO) surveyors, which sometimes give us startling glimpses of the texture of our landscapes from before

fire suppression became the new, and ultimately disastrous, law of the land.

If there is a way out of our current, undesired, and dangerous predicament it begins with education.

For that, I am thankful to the Vesper Meadow Education Program for doing the slow hard work of

collaboration to bring these lessons to you. Please read, ask questions, and think about how we can sow a

better future for our lands and for all peoples.

Thank you.

Robert Kentta

Cultural Resources Director

Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians

Texture of Our Landscape

Rapid Changes Over two centuries

Survey Plot Map of Vesper Meadow region,

General Land Office records online

Google Sattellite Image

The outlines of Vesper Meadow stand out clearly in the north half of both maps. Looking at a broader

area, shows how unique and precious Vesper Meadow is, since it was once part of a much larger group of

prairies, meadows, and diverse habitats at the cusp of the Rogue and Klamath watersheds. Other prairies

that once stood nearby have been converted to reservoirs or encroached on by trees in the absence of fire.

In many places, dense monocultures of fir for commercial timber replace the open stands of “Fir, Pine,

Cedar, Yew, c. with Undergrowth of Manzanita, Sage, etc.” that surveyors first described.

Foreword:

Indigenous Fire Science: Cultural Burning Traditions in Western Oregon

Since time immemorial, Native American people have been tending the land with fire. Here in what is

now Western Oregon, our ancestors carefully burned to maintain oak groves for acorns, used mindful

fire in meadows for camas and other foods, and pruned and burned hazel patches for basketry materials.

These practices, among many others, require the use of fire as a transformational element: fire to clear

grassland, maintain forest health, and encourage new growth. Our Tribal languages describe a land full

of good fire — place names that locate fire-crafted basketry materials, broad savannah hunting grounds,

and mountain woodlands tended for berries. All that we have been and all we will be is fire dependent.

Tribal seasonal rounds — the ongoing cycle of tending and gathering — depend on the use of fire.

Tending, gathering, and eating traditional foods supports the health and well being of Tribal

communities. In this way, we recognize that the use of prescribed fire in tending our traditional food

producing places has a direct and tangible impact on our overall health as a people. For many, this firedependent food is playing an increasingly important role in our lives.

When settlers reached our homelands nearly two hundred years ago, they failed to recognize the critical

role Native people played in shaping the landscape they came to occupy. The open savannah parklike paradise they first saw was far from pristine. It was the result of fire-dependent Indigenous land

management and agricultural practices refined over countless generations.

The first whites in the Willamette Valley did not tame a wilderness; they inherited a park.

— Esther Stutzman, Siletz Tribal Member, storyteller, and Kalapuya descendent

The newcomers and strangers to our traditional ways of knowing brought devastating changes. From

disease and warfare to forced removal and boarding schools, they attempted to dispossess us of our

places and erase our cultural identity. Our people were often removed far away from the homes we

tended and cherished. The settlers’ extractive approaches to resource management left little room for our

traditional fires, and the land fell to disrepair. As the new map of the West filled with railroads, towns,

and non-native croplands, the meadows became choked with invasive grasses, undergrowth and litter

built on the forest floor, and our traditional foods went ungathered. The untended landscape became a

compromised landscape.

A legacy of fire suppression caused by settler-society has led us to a time of collective reckoning — a time

of reflecting on failed practice, re-thinking ties to place, and recognizing the insight of Indigenous ways of

knowing. These ways of knowing and understanding a place have come to us from generations of careful

exploration, experimentation, and observation. The importance of centering Indigenous approaches to

land management cannot be overstated. Native American ecological practice — “Traditional Ecological

Knowledge” (TEK) — will emerge to serve Tribal communities as well as to address challenges faced by the

larger world. In this context of TEK, fire becomes Traditional Fire Knowledge.

In some places, fire practitioners are returning to the land. In some places, they never left. In spite of

policies designed to trivialize and vilify our ecological practice, strip us of our places and identities, and

erase our histories, our fire remains. Ongoing global climate change will call on science — Indigenous and

otherwise — to explore new ways to address the impacts of wildfire and drought in a rapidly changing

world.

This curriculum recognizes that “Indigenous Fire Science” is the science of engaging with fire as a

practice and as a tool of Indigenous agriculture. Background information and lesson activities in this

curriculum integrate and elevate critical understandings of Indigenous fire practice and how it has

shaped the land. It identifies and supports a path forward as we all confront the complex web of changes

we now face. As traditional fire knowledge and Western fire science converge, our TEK increasingly

shapes and guides the ways in which we talk about and tend to fire.

All of the lessons provide opportunities to recognize and honor the wisdom and insight of Native

Americans. There are opportunities to integrate Western science with Indigenous science and provide

insight into how the two will increasingly converge in the future. The lessons allow place-based learning

opportunities, a chance to explore fire through the eyes of the land you are on. With this in mind,

educators are encouraged to contact local Tribes, who often provide direction to those seeking to center

Native voices in their classrooms, and can offer guidance when teaching and learning about local Tribal

histories and cultures.

Teaching and learning about fire in a cultural context can be challenging in unfamiliar ways. To many

Native American people, fire — like the land itself — is honored as sacred. Fire brings the stories, songs,

ceremonies, and protocols associated with sacred things. For some, spiritual ties to places are made

stronger with fire. Seeking to know this truth can lead to critical reflection on our individual and shared

values, and foster a deeper understanding of our connections to our places.

The incredible diversity and intertwined nature of the languages, cultures, and practices found in the

place now known as Western Oregon (see this map: https://www.ctsi.nsn.us/reservation-maps/) is reflected

in traditional burning practices. Our people often worked and are still working with fire to produce

different outcomes in different places at different times. We collaborate to reach mutually beneficial

results. Teaching to know these things while working to explore our shared ties to a place will make

learning that much more meaningful. This recognition of cultural fire diversity also helps students better

understand the overall human and geographic diversity of the region.

Fire is universal. Fire is to be revered as a power of creation, and a force of destruction. The lessons found

here serve a common cause: the understanding of fire as a transformational element of the landscape, and

the recognition of Tribal peoples’ intergenerational relationship with good fire and the places where fires

are tended.

Joe Scott

Traditional Fire Practitioner

Siletz Tribal Member

Introduction

Welcome to the Fire Ecology and the Human Relationship Curriculum

The Vesper Meadow Education Program is honored to put forth the Fire Ecology and the Human

Relationship curriculum with the support of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. This curriculum

is the fulfillment of a multi-year vision to provide teachers with tools to address some of the most critical

and misunderstood issues facing Oregon today. The curriculum reflects our principles of encouraging

hands-on, joyous experiences for diverse learners, promoting equity and justice for all beings, and

embracing multiple ways of understanding our world. Though the curriculum is primarily science-based,

you will find that the lessons fulfill other subject areas and are infused with art, historical references,

creative writing, geography, and even social media.

The curriculum is intended to expand upon existing wildfire curricula that are more general to lands of

the American West and emphasize settler / industrial perspectives. This Oregon-based curriculum covers

fire’s connections with biodiversity, Indigenous culture, land management history, climate change, and

social impacts today. Many of the lessons contain several classroom activities, and provide opportunities

for educators to break the lesson into multiple learning sessions or choose the parts that are best suited

to their students. We hope to provide a foundation to effectively teach about the role of fire in Oregon’s

ecosystems, how humans have interacted with fire past and present, and engage students to think

critically about solutions for a fire-adapted future.

Recognizing that the ecological roles, multicultural relationships, and perceptions of fire are extremely

complex, we have intentionally created a flow of lessons that build on concepts over successive grade

levels. The lessons for older students draw on basic ecological concepts introduced in earlier lessons

and integrate additional scientific and societal frameworks. Further acknowledging that some students

may have negative perceptions of fire and/or have been personally influenced by wildfire in their lives,

we provide moments for classroom discussion and additional resources to address students’ emotional

wellbeing. The lessons are meant to strike a balance of candid information without adding to prior

perceptions of fear, and ultimately allow students to think clearly about the material, participate in the

activities, and feel empowered to take actions in their lives beyond the classroom.

Building Understanding, Empathy, and Applicable Skills

The lessons in this curriculum are designed to support multiple styles of learning, encourage students to think

critically, and provide opportunities for creative, collaborative problem-solving, nourishing the whole student

and promoting empathy for other living beings.

Throughout these lessons, auditory, visual, literary, oral, artistic, and technological approaches invite

students to engage deeply with Vesper Meadow’s Education Program themes:

• Understanding and celebrating biodiversity

• Rekindling the human-land relationship

• Promoting healthy ecosystems

• Solving problems creatively and collaboratively

Considerations for Teaching Native American Perspectives

When teaching about Native American issues, it is very important to understand both historical

and contemporary issues that affect Native peoples. Inextricably, the histories of colonization, land

management, and environmental policy shape the fire-adapted landscapes we experience today. The

current settler colonial society has created many changes to the environment, family structures, culture,

and food sources of Native people. Removal of Native people to reservations caused a loss in their

connection to traditional lands. While Native families struggled in new environments, many of their

ancestral lands also suffered from the loss of traditional tending practices and the introduction of

extractive land-use practices. Native people maintained their Indigenous land management practices

through relationships with new lands, rivers, and native plants. Today, Tribes work to regain land access

in places that were taken from them. At the same time, many practices used by public land agencies, such

as prescribed burning, are based on Native American land management practices. A critical look at these issues

is essential to teaching the curriculum.

Prior to the use of this curriculum, students should have an introduction to the original peoples of the lands

they inhabit and about who (Native and non-Native) inhabits these lands today. (See Native Land Map for

reference: www.ctsi.nsn.us/reservation-maps/) The curriculum invites older students to seek articles and webbased resources that will help them realize the many Native people’s land science and management practices

currently happening in Oregon and throughout the United States. We encourage educators to continue learning

about Native goals and efforts for land management as time progresses.

Concurrent to the development of this curriculum is the development of a shared curriculum for Oregon

under Senate Bill 13 Tribal History, Shared History. See the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians website,

Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians | Siletz Tribe located in Oregon (ctsi.nsn.us) for more information and

resources regarding the 9 Federally recognized Tribes of Oregon. See Oregon Department of Education’s

website for more information and classroom lessons.

A Note on Honoring Tribal Knowledge, Foods and Medicines

Native plants such as the First Foods mentioned in these lessons, are important to the lifeways of Siletz Tribal

members and other Native American people. They are foods that keep people nourished, active, and healthy,

but also important for staying connected to their families, ancestry, and culture. Many traditional food systems

were diminished by colonization and replaced with the introduction of Western diets and processed foods,

often with health consequences for Native people. With concurrent changes in land use and degradation of

habitats, many First Food plants are now rare or endangered on the landscape.

Many Siletz Tribal members and other Native American people work to restore and reconnect with food,

health, community, tribal identity, spirituality, and their ancestral natural world. Traditional Ecological

Knowledge of First Foods includes understandings of not only plant biology and ecology, but also about

complex human-plant interactions such as cultivation strategies and harvesting ethics. With the rarity of

many native plants today, it is most ethical to approach First Foods plants with ‘principles of caution,’ e.g.

taking extra time to learn about the plants throughout the seasons, conservative harvesting, harvesting

after plants have gone to seed, doing the least harm, engaging in practices that promote future growth of a

population, being aware of invasive species, etc. With these understandings combined, we encourage nonNative learners to study and appreciate native plants as First Foods and learn principles of respectful harvest

or to refrain from harvesting them.

Why Native-Centric Curriculum for All?

We hope this curriculum will bring Native issues to light for all students, and moreover empower Native

students to take action and be leaders in their communities. Historically, education was used as a weapon of

forced assimilation. Hundreds of thousands of Native American children were abducted from their families,

communities, and Tribes by US government agents and sent to boarding schools where they were forced to

refrain from practicing their culture, and were subject to severe physical and emotional abuse, and often death.

The forced removal of Native people and cultural genocide of the last two centuries has had lasting effects,

including systemic barriers, intergenerational trauma, and huge educational disparities for Native students

today. Students continue to learn and celebrate historical events that were notoriously violent toward Native

people, such as actions taken by Christopher Columbus and other colonizers, the Gold Rush, and settlement

of the American West. This curriculum seeks equity and justice in education, attempting to keep all students

engaged by honoring Native wisdom and providing perspectives for Native students to see themselves reflected

in the curriculum.

By creating an educational curriculum that looks at fire and land management, we hope to encourage all

Oregonians to understand related issues and engage in meaningful ways as community members. We hope this

work will inspire further place-based and statewide environmental education that incorporates the knowledge

and perspectives of Native peoples. We hope to reverse the trend of underrepresentation of Black, Indigenous,

and People of Color in classroom topics and discussions and make steps toward addressing racism both in

schools and beyond.

Lesson Summaries and Teaching Standards

All lessons include alignments with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS); some include

alignments with Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Oregon Social Sciences Standards, Oregon

Ethnic Studies Standards, and/or Oregon SB 13 Tribal History / Shared History expectations.

1) Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape | Topography and Fire

Recommended for 4th – 5th grades

The most significant influences on fire behavior are weather patterns, vegetation, and topography,

also known as the “wildland fire triangle.” The geographic region of southern Oregon provides

unique case studies of fire behavior due to its geologic diversity and varied terrain.

Students will look at historic photos and modern aerial photos and satellite imagery to learn

about how some people have studied fire in the last 100 years and to explore how fire interacts

with the landscape. Utilizing interactive satellite imagery from NASA, students will formulate a

hypothesis about fire behavior and create a model of their hypothesis.

NGSS: 5-ESS2-1, 4-ESS2-2, 4-ESS3-2

2) Fire Biodiversity Puzzle | Biodiversity and Fire, part one

Recommended for 4th – 5th grades

Plants, fungi, wildlife, humans, and other living things throughout the Western United States have

adapted to coexist with fire for millions of years. In the Oregon Cascades and Siskiyou mountains,

a region renowned for biodiversity, there are both common and rare species that find homes

amongst blacked and regrowing conifer forests, oak savannah, chaparral, and meadows.

Students will learn about local species’ adaptations to their fire-affected habitats by constructing

the Fire Biodiversity Puzzle art image. Studying species adaptations is not only fascinating, but

may also provide inspiration for how to thrive in a world with fire.

NGSS: 4-LS1-1, 5-LS2-1, 5-ESS2-1

CCSS: ELA-L.W.4.1, ELA-L.W.4.2.B, ELA-L.W.4.3B, ELA-L.W.5.1, ELA-L.W.5.2.B, ELA-L.W.5.3.B

3) Fire Nourishes the Land, the Land Nourishes Us | Fire as an Agricultural Tool, part one

Recommended for 4th – 5th grades

Since time immemorial, Siletz Tribal members and Indigenous peoples have applied fire to the

lands of Oregon, using traditional knowledge and skills passed down over many generations.

This traditional use of fire can be referred to as a “cultural burning.” Cultural burns are used

by Indigenous people to ensure the quantity and quality of First Foods and Materials plants

(plants that provide traditional foods and materials for cultural practices). In this way, fire can be

understood as an agricultural tool used to nourish the land and plants. In turn, this fire-enhanced

landscape nourishes the people and provides materials necessary for basketry, cordage, and other

tools.

Students will learn about First Foods and Materials plant ecology, identification, and cultural

significance. An understanding of First Foods and Materials plants and understanding cultural

burns can provide key insights into sustainable forest and landscape management in Oregon.

Note: This activity is not meant to guide students to harvest and use plants for food or materials

without the guidance of an adult with knowledge of plant identification, safe use, plant care, and

permissions to use.

NGSS: 4-LS1-1, 5-LS2-1

4) Black to Green Creature Collage | Biodiversity and Fire, part two

Recommended for 6th – 8th grades

Fire is so important to the biodiversity of ecosystems throughout the Western United States that

it is recognized as the keystone ecological process. Various intensities of burns, especially in

southern Oregon forests, can be characterized as low severity, mixed severity, and high severity.

Students will learn about the interconnections between the fire-affected landscape and

biodiversity. Utilizing the southwest Oregon region as a case study, students will think critically

about ecological relationships between the fire regimes and wildlife habitat by collaboratively

creating a collage.

NGSS MS-LS1-5, MS-LS2-1, MS-LS2-4

5) Burning for Basketry: Engineering Ecosystems with Fire | Fire as an Agricultural Tool, part two

Recommended for 6th – 8th grades

Fire is a naturally occurring part of the dry summers of Oregon, and a dependable fire cycle has created

fire-adapted native plant species. Closely linked to natural fire regimes, cultural burns have been used

in southwestern Oregon for thousands of years and have also shaped the land and plants within it. Fire

suppression policies of the early 20th century deprived landscapes and plants of this critical ecosystemengineering process in some areas of Oregon. While prescribed burns are now recognized as important by

federal land agencies, the reintroduction of fire where it has been suppressed has faced many challenges

In this lesson, students will study cultural burning of hazel and look at the interrelated effects of cultural

burning, wildfire, and fire suppression. Students’ evaluations will highlight opportunities that cultural

burning and Indigenous cultural practice offer to forest management and fire policy and planning today.

NGSS: MS-LS2-1, MS-L2-4, MS-LS-5

6) Leading the Way with TEK: Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon | Fire and Land Use History,

part one

Recommended for 6th – 8th grades

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) includes knowledge and practices that have been passed down

from generation to generation in Indigenous communities, and has been shaped by the close relationship

between Indigenous people and their land. Since the displacement of Indigenous people from traditional

homelands in Oregon in the mid 1800’s, the land has suffered from the loss of its original stewards’

tending practices like cultural burning. In recent decades there has been an increased advocacy for

returning fire where it has been suppressed, and for centering TEK in land restoration.

Students will study the historical shift in Oregon land use from the Long Indigenous Existence to the era

of colonization, compare and contrast land management of the two eras, and utilize TEK concepts to

design and present solutions for environmental issues influencing fire today.

NGSS: MS-LS2-5

Oregon Social Sciences Standards: 8.23, 8.24

7) When to Burn? Climate Change and Oregon’s Fire Season | Climate Change and Fire, part one

Recommended for 6th – 8th grades

Climate change is affecting fire season and fire intensity across Oregon landscapes. Longer fire

seasons and larger, hotter fires pose increasing risks to human, animal, and plant communities.

While prescribed burns can help make and maintain fire-adapted landscapes, their ability to be

implemented is complicated by factors of climate change, land use history, and an increase in

population living in the wildland-urban interface (WUI).

Students will look at patterns of climate change in Oregon, and learn how these affect fire season

and the use of prescribed burns. Students will understand the compounding factors associated

with prescribed fire and think critically about how to mitigate risks.

NGSS: MS-ESS3-3, MS-ESS3-5, MS-LS2-4, MS-LS2-5

8) Community Preparation and Resilience | Forest Fire and Social Issues Today, part one

Recommended for 6th – 8th grades

By analyzing demographics and natural disasters, it is clear that certain people experience the

effects of wildfire and smoke differently than others. Tribal communities, communities of color,

immigrants, and low-income families are more vulnerable to climate disasters such as extreme

wildfire due to homes located in proximity to areas of risk and exposure to weather through

outdoor jobs. Some communities also experience disparities in relief efforts following climate

disasters.

Students will examine four case studies of diverse communities in Oregon affected by wildfire,

and discuss and present solutions for community preparedness and resilience.

NGSS: MS-ESS3-2

Oregon Ethnic Studies Standards: 6.26

9) Fire Policy and Practices of the Last 200 Years | Fire and Land Use History, part two

Recommended for 9th – 10th grades

Land management is a term that describes how people make decisions and take action with

ecosystems and resources. The way in which land is managed has a direct effect on the health

of humans and the environment. Students will take a look at land use policy over the last two

centuries and how it has shaped forest land management in Oregon.

Students will gain historical perspective for fire behavior today and think critically about how

land management decisions can affect the resiliency of landscapes and human communities

moving into the future.

NGSS: HS-LS2-6, HS-LS2-7, HS-ESS 3-1

Oregon Tribal History, Shared History SB13 connections:

Natural Resource Management: Historical and Contemporary

10) Climate Change: Mitigating, Adapting, and Taking Action | Climate Change and Fire, part two

Recommended for 9th – 10th grades

Climate change is the paramount context for considering how wildfire impacts ecosystems and

human communities. We must continue learning about climate change as research develops, as

well as think critically about our beliefs around climate change, so we may develop a sense of

moral responsibility. We have potential to be agents of positive change as community members,

parts of ecosystems, and citizens of Earth as a whole.

Students will discuss ways that society can mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change on

the fire-adapted landscape.

NGSS: HS-ETS1-1

CCSS: RST.11-12.2, ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1, ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.6, ELA-LITERACY.

RH.11-12.7, ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.8, ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.9

11) Wildfire Vulnerability and Climate Justice, What Do You Meme? | Forest Fire and Social Issues Today, part two

Recommended for 9th – 10th grades

Historically marginalized communities are at most risk from the effects of climate change and

wildfire. Recent studies across the American West are looking at the effects of wildfire on health,

housing, psychology and other basic needs. The results of these studies illustrate the need for large

scale changes to social systems in order to address climate change and wildfire effects into the

future.

Students will learn about disparities in the relative impacts of wildfire on human communities,

and research information presented in news media. Students will utilize “memes,” a popular social

phenomenon, to reflect on social issues and as a creative outlet and for comic relief.

NGSS: HS-LS2-7

CCSS: 9-10.RH.1, 9-10.RH.6, 9-10.RH.7, HS-ESS2-4

Oregon HS Ethnic Studies Standards HS.2, HS.7, HS.8

4th - 5th

Lesson 1

Reading the

Fire-Influenced Landscape

TOPOGRAPHY AND FIRE

NGSS: 5-ESS2-1, 4-ESS2-2, 4-ESS3-2

Summary

60 min.

The most significant influences on fire behavior are weather patterns, vegetation, and

topography, also known as the “wildland fire triangle.” The geographic region of southern

Oregon provides unique case studies of fire behavior due to its geologic diversity and varied

terrain. Students will look at historic photos and modern aerial photos and satellite imagery

to learn about how some people have studied fire in the last 100 years, and to explore how

fire interacts with the landscape. Utilizing interactive satellite imagery from NASA, students

will formulate a hypothesis about fire behavior and create a model of their hypothesis.

GOALS

CLASSROOM PROCEDURE

•

1. Introduction discussion (alternatively, you

may incorporate this into Activity One)

Students will learn about the interactions

between topography, vegetation type, and

fire behavior through a slideshow and class

discussion.

•

Students will observe historic photographs

and modern imagery to explore concepts of

fire behavior and how it has been measured/

recorded by experts.

•

Students will gather evidence to generate and

create a model of their own hypothesis about

fire behavior.

2. Activity One: Reading the Burned

Landscape presentation

3. Conclusion

Preparation

*Note: the full worksheet will require students to be

able to understand how to create basic line graphs.

•

Print one copy of the Fire on the Landscape: Satellite View Worksheet for each student

•

Become familiar with the content presented in the discussion section below, also found

in the PowerPoint presenter notes at the bottom of each slide.

•

Open up NASA’s Worldview website and use the directions at the top of the worksheet to

become familiar with the website. https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

•

Prepare to have an overhead projection of the Worldview website for the class and/or a

set of classroom computers for the students.

ASSOCIATED LESSON MATERIALS

•

PowerPoint presentation: Fire on the Landscape

•

Website: NASA’s Worldview Map: Satellite Detections of Fires

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

•

Fire on the Landscape: Satellite View Worksheet

VOCABULARY AND TERMS

Aerial imagery: photos or models that illustrate the landscape

from above, a ‘birds-eye view”

Aspect: the direction the slope of a hill faces

Klamath Knot: the mountainous region of Southwest Oregon and

Northern California

Topography: the shape/configuration of the landscape and its

features (landforms). Topography comes from the Greek “topos”

meaning place and “graphein” meaning to carve/write

Pyrodiversity: characterizes the many different ways fire can burn

and the resulting variety of habitats and landscapes influenced by

fire

Ravines: depressions in the landscape, less severe than a canyon

Mixed-severity fire: describes how forest fires will show a wide

range of burn effects on the trees, shrubs, and understory

Saddles: dips that are found along a ridge, or depressions in a

mountain range resulting from being between two mountains

Slope: the degree of steepness of the land

Lesson 1

Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Introduction

What influences the way a fire will burn on a

landscape? Fire behavior is influenced by three main

factors: weather conditions, type of vegetation or

plants (also referred to as “fuels”), and topography.

These three factors combined are sometimes referred

to as the “wildland fire triangle.” All of these factors

interact with each other to create very complex fire

behaviors across the landscape.

Topography is the most “static” or unchanging factor

in the fire triangle since the shape of a landscape and

its features are much slower to change than weather

patterns or the condition of plants. Topographic

features like ridges, gullies, meadows, and wetlands

influence fire in different ways. Certain features may

help fires to speed up, such as steeper slopes. Fire

barriers on the landscape such as wetlands, rocky

outcrops, or roads may slow down or stop fires.

Fire scientists study fire behavior to understand the

way fire moves on the landscape. There is still much

to learn about the ways in which fire will heat up or

cool down and why it may change its direction or

speed. One of the key ways to gather information

about fire behavior is to look at images. The progress of

technology in the last 80 years has allowed scientists to

gather more accurate imagery more quickly.

Discussion

Points

It is important to keep in mind that topography’s influence on fire

is always combined with other important factors like weather and

condition of vegetation. As we look at different landscape features

that influence fire, consider how weather and vegetation might

interact with topography.

Lesson 1

Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

1. What topographic factors influence fire behavior?

SLOPE

Slope steepness: The steeper the hill, the faster fire will generally spread. This is in part due to the

fact that steeper slopes can encourage higher winds.

Fire moving upslope: Fire moves more quickly upslope than downhill. Daytime conditions tend

to contribute to fire moving upslope because heat will tend to rise and the sun warming the earth

can contribute to an upward air draft. Also with heat and flames rising, they preheat fuels on the

uphill side of the fire and make them easier to burn.

Fire moving downslope: During nighttime when the slope becomes shaded, the surface loses

heat rapidly and becomes cool. The air next to the surface also cools and becomes more dense

and heavier and it will begin to flow downslope, encouraging downslope movement of fire.

ASPECT

South facing slopes: Slopes facing south to southwest will receive the most sun exposure. As a

result, these slopes are warmer than slopes facing a northerly direction. The warmer slope results in

higher temperatures and drier conditions. The fuels/vegetation on south-facing slopes will tend to be

drier and may ignite and burn readily. Fires on south-facing aspects may last longer, and may occur

more often over the years. This sort of fire regime can help to maintain grasslands or shrublands.

North facing slopes: Slopes that are north facing receive less sun exposure and tend to be cooler

and have more forested/wet vegetation. Fires may be less severe on north facing slopes, or slopes

with this aspect may be the point at which a fire will slow down as it moves.

LANDFORM FEATURES

Ridges and mountains: Mountains and ridges may act as barriers to the horizontal movement

of air. The wind is deflected over them and may increase upward air drafts or convective winds.

When these winds reach the top of ridges and meet with updrafts from the other side, flames may

bend back.

Ravines and gullies: Depressions in the landscape like ravines and gullies will form pathways for

the flow of air and may change the direction of the fire. In narrow ravines, heat will dry out fuels

on the uphill side and they will readily ignite.

Saddles and gaps: Dips that are found along a ridge will funnel the wind and increase its speed.

Winds will also be gusty in these features and can spread embers that ignite smaller “spot” fires nearby.

Barriers: Various features on the landscape may act as barriers to stop or slow down the spread of fire.

These include:

• Fields

• Roads

• Streams, lakes, swamps

• Rocky outcrops

• Old burned areas

Lesson 1

Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

2. How might the varying topography across the Western United States have varying

effects on wildfire behavior?

The characteristics of different mountain ranges (elevation, mountain shape) and the weather patterns of different regions can vary greatly across the US. This means that the degree to which different factors influence fire behavior also varies greatly; for example, a study found that weather

and vegetation were the most important factors in the Northern Rockies, whereas vegetation and

topography were dominant in the Southwest. The study found that: (1) temperature was the most

influential weather variable in the Northern Rockies; (2) previous burns (particularly those that

were 65 years old) were moderately to highly influential in all study areas; and (3) valley bottoms

and ridgetops were significantly associated with slowing or stopping fires. (Holsinger 2016)

3. What are some tools that we have to observe fire and its interaction with the landscape?

LOOKOUT TOWERS

The US Forest Service had built over 5,000 fire lookout towers by the mid 1930’s. Fire spotters, the

people who staffed the lookout towers, could detect fires up to about 20 miles away and used a

device known as the Osborne Firefinder to determine the direction of fires. Most lookout towers

are no longer in use because aerial photography, satellite imagery, and infrared technology are

more effective.

HELICOPTER AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Not long after fire lookout tower construction became common, planes and helicopters were used

to take photographs of wildfires from above (aerial photography). These images were used to

detect locations of wildfires, and study the impacts of fire on the landscape. Today, small

remote-controlled drones are also used to gain aerial photos with less danger to a pilot.

SATELLITE AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Satellites are launched into Earth’s orbit and regularly collect data, often in the form of photographs. The first satellites were launched into space by Russia in 1957. Today, there are over 2,500

satellites orbiting the Earth. Images taken from space of the Earth’s surface can provide information about wildfires, along with many other things like weather patterns, landscape conditions,

and human activity. Satellite photography is used to detect new fires, map the edges of fires, and

detect the movement of fires over time.

SATELLITE INFRARED IMAGERY

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a tool nicknamed ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) to gather high-resolution temperature

data across the earth. The ECOSTRESS instrument uses infrared technology that can “read” the

temperature on earth. This could, for example, show how plants are stressed when they don’t have

enough water.

ECOSTRESS is special because it is set up on the International Space Station, which takes a different orbit than other Earth observation satellites. The advantages over normal photographs are

(1) being able to more effectively track the edges of forest fires and detect new, smaller “spot fires”;

(2) collecting more data and more often than could be done with a helicopter; and

(3) reducing the safety risks for helicopter pilots and firefighters.

Lesson 1

Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Activity

READING THE BURNED LANDSCAPE PRESENTATION

•

Use the PowerPoint slide presentation and corresponding presenter notes to introduce

background information about fire interacting with the landscape and past and present

ways of observing fire.

•

Lead a classroom discussion based on prompts in the second half of the slide show.

Encourage students to observe the photographs and maps closely, considering when and

how photos were taken. It may be helpful to toggle back and forth between slides.

•

The final slide introduces NASA’s interactive satellite map interface, Worldview. Explore

the Worldview website together on an overhead screen before handing out worksheets.

•

Students will orient themselves to the Worldview website with the directions on the

worksheet and then create hypotheses* about fire behavior. They can work individually

or in small groups.

*suggested for older students

Take it Outside

Prepare in advance or debrief after a class field

trip by utilizing NASA’s World View. Students

may compare their activities on their field trip,

sights they saw, or take pictures to compare

with aerial imagery from the website.

Conclusion

Encourage students to share their hypothesis with the class and draw their graph on the board. Remind

students to be kind to each other and support each other’s thought process, for it is possible that we may

never know if a hypothesis is true or not. However, we can research it and see how much evidence there

is to support it.

Choose two or three different student hypotheses to consider together as a class. Ask students to

brainstorm ways in which they would look further into and/or test the hypothesis.

•

Are there experts or other research that they would explore first?

•

Do they have examples of ways they could do some direct observation?

•

Can they use mapping and aerial imagery to look further?

•

How would they design an experiment?

Lesson 1

Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Take-Away Concepts

•

Features on the landscape and overall topography have a significant impact on how fires

burn on the land.

•

There are complicated interactions between weather, vegetation, and the landscape

which influence fire behavior.

•

Developments in technology over time have increased our ability to safely and efficiently

observe fire behavior across the landscape, and researchers continue to study fire.

NAME

DATE

4th - 5th

Lesson 1: Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Worldview Worksheet

Using NASA’s Worldview Website

1. Orient on the map: Go to the NASA Worldview website: worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

Scroll or use the search bar in the upper-right toolbar, zoom in to the region where you live.

(Click on “Place Labels” and “Coastlines/Borders/Roads” if you need help orienting the

map. Try different base layers if needed)

2. Explore layers: Click “+ Add Layers” at the bottom of the menu on the left side of the

page. In the pop-up window, select the “Hazards and Disasters” tab, then click “Fire and

Thermal Anomalies.” Click the check boxes to add layers to the map. Next, click on the

“Science Disciplines” tab and try adding layers from “Biosphere,” “Human Dimensions,” or

other categories: Settlements,Vegetation, Air Quality, Drought Hazard, and Precipitation.

Observe different combinations of layers displayed together.

3. Discuss possible correlations: Do you notice any patterns or relationships between the

different layers you explored? What additional information might you need to explore these

patterns further? Sometimes patterns that seem to correlate might not be directly related—

and in order to know if they are related we would need to further study the relationship.

4. Compare seasons and years: Use the timeline slider at the bottom of the page to see

satellite images from earlier dates. First, look at the changes that occur over the course of

one year (seasonal changes). Then look at earlier years. What trends do you notice?

5. Use the distance measuring tool: The distance measuring tool appears in the bottom

right of the screen as a button that looks like a small ruler. Turn on one of the measuring

tools (note the popup instructions) and use it to measure distances between points on the

map. For example, you may measure the distance between fires, between fires and the coast

line, etc...

Create a model of a hypothesis about fire behavior

Your hypothesis:

Example: the farther away from the coast, the more fires occur

How would you test to see if your hypothesis is true?

Lesson 1: Presenter Notes

Fire on the Landscape

Slide 2

Fire behavior is influenced by three main factors: weather conditions, type of vegetation (also referred to

as “fuels”), and topography. This is sometimes referred to as the “fire triangle.” All of these factors interact

with each other in different ways under different conditions and can create very complex fire behaviors

across the landscape.

Slide 3

Landscape is the most “static” or unchanging factor in the fire triangle since the landscape is slower to

change than weather patterns or the conditions of plants. Patterns of the landscape that influence fire

depend on the shape and amount of features like ridges, gullies, meadows etc. Certain characteristics

may help fires to speed up, such as steeper slopes. Fire barriers on the landscape such as wetlands, rocky

outcrops, or roads may slow down or stop fires.

It is important to keep in mind that topography’s influence on fire is always combined with other

important factors like weather and condition of vegetation. As we look at different landscape features that

affect fire, consider how weather and vegetation might interact with topography.

Slide 4

Slope steepness: The steeper the hill, the faster fire will generally spread. This is in part due to the fact

that steeper hills can encourage higher winds.

Fire moving upslope: Fire moves more quickly upslope than downhill. Daytime conditions tend to contribute

to fire moving upslope. This is because heat will tend to rise and the sun warming the earth can contribute to an

upward draft. Also with heat and flame rising, they pre-heat fuels on the uphill side and make them easier to burn.

Fire moving downslope: During night when the slope becomes shaded, the surface loses heat rapidly and

becomes cool. The air adjacent to the surface also cools and becomes more dense, thus heavier, and it will

begin to flow down slope.

Slide 5

South-facing slopes: Slopes facing south to southwest will receive the most solar radiation. As a result, this

slope is warmer than slopes facing a northerly direction. The warmer slope results in higher temperatures

and drier conditions. The fuel will tend to be dryer and may ignite and burn readily. Fires on south-facing

aspects may last longer and may occur more often over the years. This sort of fire regime can help to maintain

grasslands or shrublands.

North-facing slopes: Slopes that are north facing receive less solar radiation and tend to be cooler and have

more forested/wet vegetation. Fires may be less severe on north-facing slopes and may be a significant place

where fire will slow its movement on the lanscape.

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Slide 6

Ridges and mountains: Mountains and ridges may act as barriers to the horizontal movement of air.

The wind is deflected over them and may add to the upslope convective winds. When the ridge tops are

reached, updrafts from the other side may bend the flames back.

Ravines and gullies: Depressions in the landscape like ravines and gullies will form paths for the flow of

air and may change the direction of the fire. In narrow ravines, heat will dry out fuels on the opposite side

and they will readily ignite.

Saddles and gaps: Dips that are found along a ridge will funnel the wind and increase its speed. Winds

will also be gusty and can spread embers that create smaller “spot” fires igniting nearby.

Barriers: Various features on the landscape may stop or slow down the spread of fire.

• Fields

• Roads

• Streams, lakes, swamps

• Rocky outcrops

• Old burned areas

Slide 7

Example of natural fire breaks: Beavers promoting fire resilient landscapes

The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon in 2021 burned through thousands of acres of open forest and

timber plantations. This photo was taken along Dillon Creek where beavers had been tending the creek.

Notice the beaver dams in the right two photographs, and the amount of lush green along the waterway

that remained unburned. This oasis habitat will help neighboring areas of the forest to regenerate in the

following years.

Slide 8

The characteristics of different mountain ranges (elevation, mountain shape) and the weather patterns

of different regions can vary greatly across the US. This means that the degree to which different factors

influence fire behavior also varies greatly; in some regions topography and weather may be the biggest

influence, in some regions topography and vegetation may be the biggest influence.

A study found that weather and vegetation were the most important factors in the Northern Rockies,

whereas vegetation and topography were dominant in the Southwest. The study found that: (1) temperature

was the most influential weather variable in the Northern Rockies; (2) previous burns (particularly those

that were 65 years old) were moderately to highly influential in all study areas; and (3) valley bottoms and

ridgetops were significantly associated with slowing or stopping fires. (Holsinger 2016)

Slide 9

Fire scientists continue to study fire behavior to understand the way fire moves on the landscape. There is

still much to learn about the ways in which fire will heat up or cool down and the things that may change

its direction or speed. One of the key ways to gather information about fire behavior is to look at images.

The progress of technology in the last 80 years has allowed scientists to gather better imagery more

accurately and more quickly.

Lesson 1 Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Slide 10

The US Forest Service had built over 5,000 fire lookout towers by the mid 1930’s. Fire spotters, the people

who staffed the lookout towers, could detect fires up to about 20 miles away and used a device known as

the Osborne Firefinder to locate the direction of fires. Most lookout towers are no longer in use because

aerial photography, satellite imagery, and infrared technology are more effective.

LEFT: Fire Control Officer and Lookout with the Fire Finder

Cinnabar Lookout Tower

Rogue River National Forest 1964

RIGHT: Abbot Butte Lookout Tower

Rogue River National Forest

Slide 11

LEFT: Panoramic photograph from the Bald Mountain Lookout

Rogue River National Forest, Prospect Ranger District 1933

RIGHT: Photo of a fire near Yellowjacket Lookout

Rogue River National Forest 1917

Slide 12

Not long after fire lookout tower construction, planes and helicopters were used to take photographs of

wildfires from above (aerial photography). These images were used to detect locations of wildfires and study

the impacts of fire on the landscape. Today, small remote-controlled drones are also used to gain aerial

photos with less danger to a pilot.

Pictured: Moon Prairie Fire, aerial view 1962

Slide 14

Satellites are launched into Earth’s orbit and regularly collect data, often in the form of photographs. The

first satellites were launched into space by Russia in 1957. Today, there are over 2,500 satellites orbiting

the Earth. Images taken from space of the Earth’s surface can provide information about wildfires, along

with many other things like weather patterns, landscape conditions, and human activity. Satellite imagery

is used to detect new fires, map the edges of fires, and detect the movement of fires over time.

Slide 15

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a tool nicknamed ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne

Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) to gather high-resolution temperature data across the

earth. The ECOSTRESS instrument utilizes infrared technology that can “read” the temperature on earth.

This could, for example, show how plants are stressed when they don’t have enough water.

It is special because it is set up on the International Space Station, which takes a different orbit than other

Earth observation satellites. The advantages over normal photographs are (1) being able to more effectively

track the edges of forest fires and detect new, smaller “spot fires” (2) collecting more data and more often

than could be done with a helicopter; (3) reducing the safety risks for helicopter pilots and firefighters.

PICTURED: Scientists use satellites to help map wildfire perimeters and hotspots (indicated in red), as in

this image of the Jack Fire 2021 in Oregon. Courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Slide 17

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Question: What do you observe in this lookout tower photo?

Possible answers and further discussion:

• Trees have been cut in proximity to lookout tower

• Probe further: Why might this have been done? To increase visibility from the tower, to protect

the tower from potential forest fires

• You can see about 25 miles from the lookout tower, it seems slightly hazy in the distance

• There are fewer, smaller trees growing alomg the ridge (pictured right)

• There are open areas on the forested hills in the distance.

• Probe further: What do you think that these openings are? What caused them? Possible answers:

open meadows maintained by fire, rock outcrops and lava fields, areas that have been logged

Photo: Blue Rock Lookout, Butte Falls Ranger District, 1936

from the RRNF Historical Records Collection in Hannon Library Special Collections.

This photograph is part of the Historical Records Collection of the Rogue River National Forest, and

made available courtesy of Southern Oregon University Hannon Library.”

Slide 18

Question: What do you notice about the landscape that could influence fire behavior?

Possible answers and further discussion:

• The south-facing aspect of the hillside (foreground) of the photo doesn’t have many trees.

Together with the road, they may serve as a barrier, or fire break

• Probe further: Why might the hillside have fewer trees on the south slope? South-facing aspects

tend to be naturally drier and lack tree growth

• Mt. McLoughlin has very little snow, this picture must have been taken late in the summer/ early fall.

• Open rocky lava fields on Mt. McLoughlin’s slopes may act as barriers, or fire breaks

Photo: Blue Rock Lookout, Butte Falls Ranger District, 1936

Slide 19

Question: What can you observe from a lookout tower that you can’t observe from an aerial photo?

Possible answers:

•Individual trees, size, height, growth form/shape

•Getting more detail about ground cover: rock versus small plants

•Weather conditions

Photo LEFT: Blue Rock Lookout, Butte Falls Ranger District, 1936

from the RRNF Historical Records Collection in Hannon Library Special Collections

This photograph is part of the Historical Records Collection of the Rogue River National Forest, and

made available courtesy of Southern Oregon University Hannon Library.

Photo RIGHT: Google Earth image 1994

Slide 20

Question: What can you observe from an aerial photo better than from a lookout tower?

Possible answers:

• Landscape level features

• Road networks

• Logging, Clearcuts

• Different stands/ patches of trees regrowing

• Burned areas

Lesson 1 Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

Slide 21

Buck Rock Lookout location 2005

Question: What has changed in this image 11 years later?

Possible answers:

• Logging (see the patches of open ground within the orange circle)

• Regrowth of plantation stands (see the rows of trees within the green circle)

• New road (see the blue circle)

Slide 22 (Optional slide)

Slide 23

Question: How might changes across the landscape 1994-2019 (over 25 years) affect changes in fire

behavior?

Possible answers:

• Plantation stands grow in thick, with trees close together burn hotter and faster

• Fires are often started by people who access this area by roads

Slide 25

Question: What do you observe in this satellite image?

Possible answers:

• Smoke is blowing to the west

• Fires are generally in the Cascade mountains

• Most smoke is blowing for a long distance

Follow up question: How do you think this image was created? What type of technology would illustrate

the smoke, but also the outlines of the fires?

Answers: Read description below

Satellite imagery may include cameras but also additional technology that can detect fires. For example,

infrared sensors can detect the boundaries of fire. Infrared sensors “read” temperatures on the landscape

to provide detailed information about where fires are, since smoke makes it hard to see what is happening

below. (See outlined red boundaries on the map image)

This image of the widespread “Labor Day Fires” in 2020 from a satellite shows smoke and fire boundaries in

red outline. NASA’s Aqua captured this image of the large number of fires that were burning by the first week

of September 2020. Some of the fires started in August, but the majority started after an unprecedented and

historically rare windstorm that swept through the region Monday Sep. 7 – Tuesday Sep. 8. Wind gusts up to

65 mph were clocked during the event. The timing of the windstorm was unusual because those strong east

winds usually occur in in the dead of winter—not in early September. In addition to the heat, it is another

example of the changing weather patterns that are being seen.

The smoke from fires is seen cascading off the coast into the Pacific Ocean traveling more than 600 miles just

in this image. It is striking how thick and concentrated the smoke is in this image, and many cities and towns

up and down the entire West Coast reported almost “nightlike” conditions and red-orange skies created by

particles in the air blocking out all other colors.

Map Image of the widespread “Labor Day Fires” in 2020 from satellite

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Slide 26

Bootleg Fire 2021

During the summer of 2021, the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon burned more than 410,000 acres,

making it one of the largest fires in Oregon’s history. Images shown here from the ECOSTRESS tool, were

used to measure surface temperature from the vantage point of the International Space Station, twice per

day at a high spatial resolution (around 70 meters). Other satellites only can provide data every week or

two. This provides new types of data that can be used by first responders like the US Forest Service.

Areas in red represent the hottest pixels ECOSTRESS detected. The extreme heat in those areas indicates

the fire front, or where the fire is hottest and spreading.

Slide 27

Online exploration: explore data on NASA’s Worldview website (https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/)

1) Read the background information below to the class.

2) Hand out the Worldview Worksheet to students

3) Explore the Worldview website together as a class. Have students then follow the directions on the

worksheet to guide them through the website and creating a model for their hypothesis.

US Satellites from NASA: Scientific instruments attached to satellites are often the first to detect

wildfires burning in remote regions, and the locations of new fires are sent directly to land managers

worldwide within hours of the satellite overpass. These instruments detect actively burning fires, track

the transport of smoke from fires, provide information for fire management, and map the extent of

changes to ecosystems based on the extent and severity of burn scars.

Constantly updated imagery: Check out NASA’s Worldview application (https://worldview.earthdata.

nasa.gov/), which allows you to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery

layers and then download the data. Many of the imagery layers are updated within three hours of

observation — actively burning fires are shown as red points.

Orbiting every day and taking pictures: Terra passes over the equator at approximately 10:30am (day)

and 10:30pm (night) local time, NOAA-20 passes over the equator at approximately 12:40pm (day) and

12:40am (night) local time, and Aqua and Suomi NPP passes over the equator at approximately 1:30pm

(day) and 1:30am (night) local time. The fire information is available within Worldview approximately 3

hours after satellite overpass.

Lesson 1 Reading the Fire-Influenced Landscape

4th - 5th

Lesson 2

Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Fire and Biodiversity, part one

NGSS: 4-LS1-1. , 5-LS2-1. , 5-ESS2-1.

CCSS: ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1, W.4.2.B, 4.3.B, W.5.1, W.5.2.B, W.5.3.B

Summary

60 mins

Plants, fungi, wildlife, humans, and other living things throughout the Western United

States have adapted to coexist with fire for millions of years. In the Oregon Cascades and

Siskiyou Mountains, a region renowned for biodiversity, there are both common and rare

species that find home amongst blacked and regrowing conifer forests, oak savannah,

chaparral, and meadows. Students will learn about local species’ adaptations to their fireaffected habitats by constructing the Fire Biodiversity Puzzle art image. Studying species’

adaptations is not only fascinating, but may also provide inspiration for how to thrive in a

world with fire.

GOALS

CLASSROOM PROCEDURE

•

Students will discuss with peers how

biodiversity is important to ecosystem health.

1. Introduction discussion: concepts of

fire and biodiversity

•

Students will demonstrate in writing their

understanding of how different species in

Oregon are adapted to fire-affected landscapes.

2. Activity One: Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Students will work collaboratively to describe

how biodiversity, fire, and habitat are related.

4. Conclusion

•

3. Activity Two: Write a Species Story

Preparation

•

Become familiar with Introduction and Discussion Points

•

Print one copy of the Fire Adaptations Strategies handout per group of 2-3 students

•

Print one copy of the Biodiversity Fire Puzzle pages for each group of 2-3 students

•

Print one copy of the Species Story Worksheet per student

•

Suggested prerequisite lesson topics: food webs, ecosystem interactions, simple

chemical reactions (heat/light)

MATERIALS

Per group of 2-3 students:

•

Masking tape OR posterboard plus glue

•

Colored pencils (optional)

•

Fire Biodiversity Puzzle Pieces

•

Fire Adaptations Strategies handout

•

Species Survival Story Worksheet

•

Artist’s Statement

Vocabulary and Terms:

Biodiversity: variety of life in a particular habitat or ecosystem

Blacked forest: the stage in which a forest has recently burned, before it has started to regrow

into a green forest

Burl: a growth on a tree formed from unsprouted bud tissue. The burl forms large, knobby

looking growths on the base and trunk of the tree where stems may grow back after disturbance

Forest structure: layers of the forest including the canopy, understory, shrubs, forest floor, and soil

Mycelium: the vegetative part of a fungus (whereas the mushroom is the fruiting part of the

fungus). Mycelium grows in soil or wood and is made up of a network of fine rootlike filaments

that are often white.

Organism: a single living being

Serotinous: an adaptation of plants with seeds that require fire to release and germinate

Snag: a tree that is dead but still standing; snags serve as important wildlife habitat for insects,

birds, rodents, fungi and other organisms.

Habitat: the environment in which an organism survives that provides all the things that it needs to live

Lesson 2

Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Introduction

Southwest Oregon is recognized globally as an incredible hotspot for biodiversity. A complex web of

relationships exists among the many species native to Southwest Oregon where the Cascade and Siskiyou

Mountains converge. This complex web is central to Native ancestral relationships (food, medicine, fibers,

tools, and intricate cultural understandings and practices).

The individual species that make up the web are able to thrive in habitats that have been affected by fire

for millions of years. Some wildlife species survive with fire because they find food or shelter within the

burned features of a blacked forest. Some plant species rely on fire to survive because their seeds need fire

to germinate. Other understory plants may only be triggered to grow after fire when they are no longer

shaded out by bigger shrubs or trees. We will explore some specific Southwest Oregon species and their

adaptations to living with fire and how their interconnected existence contributes to biodiversity.

Discussion Points

1. What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity is the sum of all the different types of life on this earth. It includes life at all levels

from groups of animals to individual species and even the genes within a single organism.

2. Why is biodiversity important?

The strength of interconnections

Biodiversity is important because it creates healthy ecosystems. All living things are connected

by their relationship to water, air, fire, earth, and especially by their connections with each other.

Connections to each other include being food for each other, helping each other to grow by

sharing nutrients, and helping create rich soil when their bodies die and decompose. When there

are many different types of life on this earth, all helping each other to live and grow over time, the

earth and interconnected web of life is stronger.

When all species benefit, humans benefit

Humans depend on healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. For example, when bees and butterflies

are healthy, they pollinate the plant crops that we eat. Genetic diversity amongst wild populations

of all types of animals helps to ensure healthy populations for hunting and to protect against

disease that can spread to domestic livestock.

3. How do Organisms Survive with Fire?

Give a copy of the Fire Adaptations Strategies handout to each group of 2-3 students. Explain that

in a minute, you’re going to put together a puzzle that illustrates how fire, plants, and animals

interact in an ecosystem, but first, you need to learn about how organisms can survive (and

thrive) with fire individually. Have each student read the information about one strategy/species

to their small group, or to the whole class.

Lesson 2

Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Activity

FIRE BIODIVERSITY PUZZLE

• Complete the puzzle

Hand out a complete set of puzzle pieces to each small group. Direct students to

work in their small groups to assemble the puzzle pieces into the complete art image

using tape on the back of the pieces OR by gluing them to a posterboard.

Optional: students may color the puzzle pieces after assembling.

• Reflect on the completed puzzle

Once student groups have completed the puzzle, summarize the total image by

reading the artist’s statement aloud to students. Students may also read the artist’s

statement to themselves or in their groups if using the Species Story Worksheet.

Then, lead a discussion around the question: How does fire benefit wildlife habitat and

support biodiversity? Remind students to look back at the Fire Adaptations Strategies

handout for clues.

Fire supports habitat diversity: Landscapes burn unevenly; different patches of land

respond differently to fire, stimulating suitable habitat and usable nutrients for a variety of

organisms.

Fire creates shelter and food: Tall snags, fallen logs and downed wood, ground hollows,

and tree cavities create habitat for nesting birds and other organisms; they shelter insect

life that provides forage for animals like birds, reptiles, and small mammals; they support

decomposers like fungi and bacteria, which in turn further break down the wood into soil

nutrients.

Fire supports productivity: Fire opens space and increases available light for new life at

all levels of the forest structure, especially in the mid and understory; it stimulates new

plant growth from seeds stored in the soil and fungal networks are stimulated to produce

mushrooms, like morels, to bloom; it changes nutrients in the soil, helping stimulate the

growth of decomposers such as insects, bacteria, and fungi as they break down organic

matter used by new life.

Fire recycles and redistributes nutrients: In the forest ecosystem, the flow of essential

nutrients is “jump started” through heat, ash additions, and changes to vegetation dynamics

which allow for soil restoration and new plant growth.

Lesson 2

Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Write a Species Story

After groups have finished assembling their Fire Biodiversity Puzzle, ask them to choose one species from

the puzzle and write a short story from their (first person) point of view about how that species came to

be in the post-fire burned area.

For writing, students may use the Species Story Worksheet or, if you write story prompts on the board,

students may write in their journals:

•

What was your habitat like before the fire, and what changed?

•

Did changes in the air and water affect your ability to find food or shelter?

•

What parts of your body (internal or external) helped you to survive the fire, or to grow?

•

Were you able to resprout (plants) or have offspring (animals) after the fire?

•

How are you interacting with other plants and animals around you after the fire?

Optional: If students need more time, the Species Story may be assigned as homework with a target word/

paragraph count. Finish conclusion (below) in the classroom before students turn in their stories.

Conclusion

•

Have students share their stories with their group.

•

Ask student groups to reflect on their puzzle experience and have students

take turns sharing species adaptations they learned about.

•

Further prompts for wrap-up discussion: What was something new to

you? Had you realized all the different species that are adapted to fire?

Take-Away Concepts

•

Many different species thrive or even rely on fire for habitat. Fire may create shelter or

trigger growth of their foods, and support biodiversity across the landscape.

•

Species have adapted to living with fire for millions of years. The diversity of strategies

they have adapted to live with fire are intricate and complex, and humans are just

starting to understand some of these relationships.

•

What are some adaptations of animals and plants that we discussed today that could

apply to humans living with fire adapted landscapes?

NAME

DATE

4th - 5th

Lesson 2

Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Statement from Artist Zoe Keller

What is a complex early seral forest?

As a mixed or high-severity fire sweeps across a forested landscape, it leaves behind the

vital ingredients for the life of a new forest. Tree crowns burn, and some living trees are

killed or damaged severely enough to die slowly in the following years. As these mature

trees wane, the canopy is pulled open. Light rains down on the forest floor, nutrients and

moisture once monopolized by trees becomes available for new forms of plant life, and

the ground is made rich with woody debris. Grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, and hardwood

and coniferous tree seedlings take hold in this landscape, weaving together complex and

diverse plant communities. This burst of vegetation creates habitats for a diverse group of

species. Grasses, flower nectar, seeds and berries touch off a tangled food web, twisting

through insects to rodents, birds, and bats, and finally to raptors like northern goshawks

and northern spotted owls that hunt from adjacent unburned forests. Larger mammals —

Roosevelt elk, Columbian black-tailed deer, and black bears in the Klamath–Siskiyou region

- browse on foliage and berries. Equally as important as this lush new burst of greenery are

the blackened ghosts of fires past, elements of the forest that are called “biological legacies.”

Standing dead trees called snags, downed trees and woody debris provide unique habitats.

Birds perch on the branches of snags, flying out across the opened landscape to feast on the

flush of moths, butterflies and other insects. Bats dart across the sky, sharing in the sixlegged buffet. Woodpeckers dig grubs out of blackened trees and excavate nesting holes that

are used by succeeding cohorts of birds and small mammals. This vibrant stage in the life of

a forest is called a “complex early seral forest,” a name applied to forests recovering from any

type of disturbance, including not only fire but also wind, severe flood or volcanic eruption.

This stage lasts until tree seedlings grow tall and the canopy closes once again, a process that

can take decades or even a century. Because of their high levels of biodiversity and relative

rarity across forested landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, complex early seral forests are

considered just as precious as old growth forests.

Write a Species Story

Choose one species from the puzzle and to write a first-person short story about how it came to be in the

post-fire burned area. Use the backside of this paper and answer the prompts below to guide your story:

•

What was your habitat like before the fire, and what changed?

•

Did changes in the air and water affect your ability to find food or shelter?

•

What parts of your body (internal or external) helped you to survive the fire, or to grow? Were you

able to resprout (plants) or have offspring (animals) after the fire?

•

How are you interacting with other plants and animals around you after the fire?

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Case Studies Species Descriptions

Lesson 2: Fire Biodiversity Puzzle

Oregon Cascades and Siskiyou fire-adapted species,

corresponding with Fire Biodiversity Puzzle pieces:

1. Bluebirds and oregon junco

Insectivorous (insect-eating) birds like Western Bluebirds will feast in post-burned forests. Insects

will be some of the first life to colonize the burned forest. They help to decompose burned wood,

rejuvenate the soil, pollinate new plants, and feed other creatures. Oregon juncos find seeds and

make nests on the open ground found in recently burned forests.

2. Long-eared myotis bat, lazuli bunting, townsend’s solitaire

Bats can benefit from fire because it creates a variety of habitat conditions. When fire clears patches of

forest, it creates openings in the forest that enable bats to hunt more easily with echolocation, find an

abundance of insects, and some roost (take shelter) in dead snags and rotting wood. (Steel 2019)

Lazuli bunting have been shown to increase in population in areas in the years immediately

following mid- and high-severity fires. (Leidolf 2007)

3. Black-backed woodpecker, hairy woodpeckers, butterflies

The black-backed woodpecker relies on dead wood and large burned snags that are created by

mid- to high-severity fire. Other woodpeckers, like the hairy woodpecker also benefit from big dead

“legacy trees” that provide holes for nesting cavities and a place to forage for the insects they prefer.

In the several years after wildfire, an abundance of flowers and flowering shrubs will often regrow and

become alive with pollinators. Some butterflies, like those in the “blue” family of butterflies, rely on

the lupine and other flowers that grow after wildfire to continue their life cycle.

4. Ponderosa pine old growth snag, common false lupine

Old trees are extremely important to the burned forest because they can withstand hotter fires,

and will provide seeds for forest regrowth. The ponderosa pines’ fire adaptations include thick fireresistant bark, shedding of lower limbs (self-pruning), and having open crowns and a branching

pattern that can dampen fire. Lupines and other pea-family plants work together with bacteria in the

soil to absorb nitrogen from the air. This nitrogen helps pea-family plants to be some of the first plants to

spring up after a fire when they will bloom in large quantities.

5. Black bear, buffaloberry, and fireweed

Black bears find a diversity of foods such as plant sprouts, berries, insects, and rodents when the burnt

forest flushes with regrowth. Fireweed, named for its growth after a fire, will grow in large fields of

burned forests and along waterways. Buffaloberry has roots that will survive fires to resprout in the

following years. The open canopy of burned forests allows it access to more light which can increase berry

production.

6. Bracken ferns, broad-leaved lotus, pine cones

Some seed cones like those of the knobcone pine are serotinous, meaning they require the heat of fire

to open up and release their seeds for germination. Bracken ferns have hearty roots that survive in

sandy soils and readily resprout after fire.

7. Columbian black-tailed deer, valley garter snake, boreal toad, prostrate ceanothus

Columbian black-tailed deer like to browse the fresh grass and plants that resprout a year after fire.

Prostrate ceanothus works together with bacteria to bring nitrogen from the air into the soil soon

after fire has gone through the forest. Some related ceanothus species have seeds that require highintensity fire to help them germinate. To aid this strategy, they have a flammable resin in their leaves

along with seeds that remain dormant in the soil for long periods of time waiting for high-intensity

fire.

8. Black morel mushroom, northern alligator lizard, umbrella liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha)

Morels will often sprout in the few years after a fire because theirunderground mycelium are stimulated

to grow a mushroom. The common and widespread umbrella liverwort is commonly associated with

postfire shrub regrowth. Umbrella liverwort likes the exposed mineral soil and high lime concentrations

present after a severe fire and can sometimes cover entire burned areas. It helps prevent soil erosion that

frequently occurs after severe fires, and renews the humus (topsoil layer) in the burned soil.

The northern alligator lizard is sensitive to fire and will avoid it by finding protective habitat like

rocks or drainages.

9. Ground squirrels

These rodents can thrive in areas post-fire, as they like to burrow in the soil in open pine forests with

some rock features. Fire and other disturbances that remove the forest canopy improve the habitat for

these animals. (Shick 2006 )

10. Roosevelt elk, california globe mallow

California globe mallow is a fire-following mallow endemic to the Modoc Plateau of northeast

California and southern Oregon. It has recently been designated a sensitive species (Arneson 2004).

Roosevelt elk like to forage at forest edges and clearings that are regrowing during the years after

fire where they find fresh shoots, berries, and other foods. Traditionally, Native people of southern

Oregon and other areas would use fire to manage hunting grounds. These cultural burns benefit

larger, landscape-scale fire processes over time.

11. Chipmunk, manzanita, red flowering currant, hummingbird

Some species of manzanita are evolved to resprout from the base of their stump, or burl, and will do

so just weeks after fire. Similarly, other berry shrubs like the red-flowering currant will thrive after

fire, and their red color attracts hummingbirds to their nectar. Chipmunks forage on serotinous

seeds that are released and other seeds that are produced in the first few years after fire.

12. Snowberry, white-crowned sparrow, pacific blackberry

Snowberry has a root crown and rhizomes that sprout after fire. Snowberry serves as pollinator

habitat later in the summer when it blooms. Pacific blackberry will sprout from “suckers” after fire

and is also capable of spreading rapidly from trailing stems. (Tirmenstein 1989)

The white-crown sparrow is migratory and eats insects and seeds. It does best in “hybrid” habitats

where fire has increased shrub diversity and the growth following a fire is still young. (Bent 1968)

Lesson 2: Biodiversity and Fire

Species Strategies

How might different plants, animals, and all living creatures including humans, be adapted to living with fire?

Explore the many ways that species have evolved and interacted with fire over millennia:

Species’ fire adaptation strategies

Definition

Example Oregon species

Invader species

Species that prefer

disturbance to the landscape

and are some of the first

ones to regrow. Also known

as pioneer species.

Fireweed, deerbrush,

buckbrush, willow

Species that have long-lived

seeds that survive on trees

or in the soil during fire.

Sometimes those seeds

require fire to be released

and grow (serotinous).

Knobcone pine,

lodgepole pine

Avoider species

Species that grow in the

understory and are generally

shade tolerant. These species

are less resistant to fire

and tend to grow in latesuccessional (old growth)

forests where they can avoid

frequent fire.

Bigleaf maple, pacific

yew, Brewer’s spruce,

mountain hemlock

Ponderosa pine, sugar

pine, douglas fir, red fir

Resister species

Species that evolved closely

with fire and can survive low

to mid-intensity fire. Species

adaptations may include

thick bark, high water

content in leaves/trunk,

and shedding of dead

branches.

Species that withstand being

burned above ground, but

have vigorous roots that

resprout after fire. These

species regrow readily after

high-intensity fires.

Manzanita, madrone,

hazel, oak, ocean spray

Evader species

Endurer species

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

4th - 5th

Lesson 3

Fire Nourishes the Land,

the Land Nourishes Us

Fire as an Agricultural Tool, part one

NGSS: 4-LS1-1, 5-LS2-1

Summary

60+ mins

Since time immemorial, Siletz Tribal members and other Indigenous peoples have applied

fire to the lands of Oregon using traditional knowledge and skills passed down over many

generations. This traditional use of fire can be referred to as “cultural burning.”

Cultural burns are used by Indigenous people for many purposes, including to ensure the

quantity and quality of First Food and Materials plants, plants that provide traditional foods

and cultural materials. In this way, fire is an agricultural tool used to nourish the land and

plants. The fire-enhanced landscape nourishes the people and provides materials necessary

for basketry, cordage, and other tools.

In this activity, students will learn about First Food and Materials plant ecology,

identification, and cultural significance in relation to cultural burning. Note: Students

should not harvest or use plants without the guidance of an adult who can guide plant

identification safe use, plant care, and permissions to use.

An understanding of First Foods and Materials plants and understanding cultural burns can

provide key insights into sustainable forest and landscape management in Oregon.

GOALS:

CLASSROOM PROCEDURE

•

Students will identify examples of First Food

plants by biological and ecological clues.

1. Introduction discussion: First Foods

and Cultural Burning

•

Students will identify different ways that

fire can benefit plants and be used as an

“agricultural tool.”

•

Students will develop and draw a model that

describes fire as a catalyst in the movement of

matter among organisms.

2. Activity One: First Foods and

Materials Plants Card Game

3. Activity Two: My Fire-Adapted

Plant Worksheets

4. Conclusion

Preparation

•

Familiarize yourself with the Summary and Plant Card activity

•

Prepare to divide students into groups of 3 or 4

•

Print off one set of Plant Cards (9 per set) for each group of students. Use cardstock,

if available, so names of plants are not visible from the other side

•

Print off one set of Hint Cards (9 per set) for each group of students,

use cardstock if available

•

Print one Note Sheet and Worksheet for each student

•

Cut Plant Cards and arrange in stacks with image-sides down, with manzanita card on top

•

Cut Hint Cards and arrange in stacks with name-sides facing down

•

Optional: have students work in groups to cut and arrange Plant Cards and Hint Cards

MATERIALS

•

White board, chalkboard, or screen-share for making lists

•

First Food Plant Cards

•

Hint Cards

•

Note Sheets

•

Plant Worksheets

•

Vocabulary List

Vocabulary and Terms

Agricultural tool: any method, practice, or physical tool used by people to affect food production or

collection in a tended ecosystem

Annual: a plant that germinates, flowers, and sets seed in one year

Burl: a growth on a tree formed from unsprouted bud tissue. The burl forms large, knobby-looking

growths on the base and trunk of the tree where stems may grow back after disturbance.

Canopy: the branches and leaves at the top of a group of trees that form the “roof ” of the forest

Catkin: a long, thin cluster of tiny flowers that do not have petals; found on willows, oaks and other trees

Cultural burn: traditional use of fire to maintain and manage landscapes for foods and materials, to cook

food, or to hold ceremonies

Lesson 3

Fire as an Agricultural Tool

Deciduous: trees or shrubs that shed leaves seasonally, usually in fall

Endemic: describes a species that lives in only one specific place

Fire suppression: a land management practice that focuses on fighting and stopping wildfires

First Foods: traditional native foods (plant or animal) that provide sustenance and promote health

Geophyte: a plant with underground storage parts, like starchy roots or bulbs, that can survive when

conditions above ground are too harsh. Camas is an example of a geophyte.

Material culture: objects of traditional use that require plants and animals to provide materials

Material plants: plants that grow materials for traditional food collection and storage equipment, such as

baskets and nets

Mid-story tree: a tree whose canopy exists between the heights of the tallest trees and the understory plants

Perennial: a plant that lives more than two years

Seed bank: all viable seeds of a species present in the soil

Shrub: a small or medium-sized, woody, perennial plant with multiple stems growing from ground level

Time immemorial: a very long time, before written history

Understory: the layer of plants and shrubs growing closest to the forest floor

Introduction Discussion

First Foods and Cultural Burning Discussion

Classroom time: 20 minutes

Materials used: screen or board for making lists

1. Make a list of “Agricultural Acts.” Ask students to imagine being a farmer, and ask, “What does

a farmer do to help plants grow on their farm?” Record the responses and label this as a list of

“agricultural acts,” and guide the discussion to include answers like planting seeds, watering,

fertilizing, removing pests, pruning, or weeding.

2. Make a list of “First Food Plants.” Ask students if they can identify sources of food for humans that

come from native plants. Some hints you may consider giving are:“Think about things that grow and

fall from trees in the forests,” or “Are there any fruits you have seen growing in the wild? (acorns and

berries).” Record a list and label it as “First Food plants,” and define First Foods.

3. Make a list of “Materials Plants.” Ask students if they can identify plants that people use to make

items or tools. Some hints you may offer: “Is there anything in your home that came from a plant?”

Define Material Plants and give examples like wood from trees for various uses, and plants used

for hats and basketry. Point out that material culture is an important part of traditional gathering,

storing, and processing of First Foods.

4. Discuss the agriculture of First Foods and Materials: Next, ask students to think of taking care of

a First Food such as oak trees and their acorns, like a farmer: “If you depended on acorns for food,

Lesson 3

Fire as an Agricultural Tool

what might you do to have a good acorn crop?” Ask students to think about taking care of Materials

plants: “If you want plants to grow a certain way, how might you work with them?” Discuss how some

plants can provide both food and materials.

5. Fire as an agricultural tool/defining a cultural burn: Ask, “Do you think fire can be used to take

care of First Food and Materials plants?” “How do you think fire is used to care for plants?”

Gather some student responses, then explain: “Fire is a primary agricultural tool used by Indigenous people. Cultural burns are applied widely on the land, and are important to the Indigenous way

of life and to the land. The traditions associated with cultural burns are handed down from generation to generation. They are often accompanied by ceremonies and are done very carefully at specific

times, in specific places. Fire helps ensure the landscape will provide enough foods and materials that

people need to sustain a rich, traditional life.”

Discuss some examples of fire as an agricultural tool:

• Fire is a traditional way that some Indigenous people control acorn weevils, the wormy pest of

acorns. Fire disrupts their lifecycle, as acorns infected with weevils fall to the ground. The weevils

overwinter inside fallen acorns, but are killed by fire if it moves across the land.

•

Fire can return nutrients from burned material to the soil. Decomposers in the soil use those

nutrients to fertilize further growth of nearby plants. Fire helps nutrients cycling through the land,

and to fertilize First Foods.

6. Indigenous removal and fire suppression: Lastly, say: “Cultural burning has been on the decline

in recent history. Populations of Indigenous people declined very sharply when nonnative traders

brought new diseases into Indigenous communities (Wilkinson, 2010). With a decline in the number

of Indigenous people on the land, the number of cultural burns also declined. Later, when Indigenous

people were forcibly removed to Reservations in the mid 1800’s, the number of people practicing

cultural burning further declined. By the 1900’s, fire suppression became a policy of federal and state

agencies, with some Tribal weaver families being the last to practice burning around their hazel patches

and close to their homes in Tribal communities (Kentta, Robert, personal communication, 2021). Fires

were suppressed wherever possible for many many years. It was only recently that state and federal

agencies started to acknowledge what Indigenous people knew all along: that fire plays a necessary role

in ecosystem health in this region. Now fires are sometimes set intentionally on landscapes to achieve

the benefits of fire. Today, Indigenous knowledge of cultural burning is beginning to be incorporated

more widely in forest management by government agencies and landowners.”

Activity One

First Foods and Materials Plants Card Game

Classroom time: 30 minutes

Materials used: First Food Plants and Materials Cards, Hint Cards, Note Sheets

In this activity, small groups of students will work together to identify First Foods and Materials plants

using hints about plant identification, cultural uses, and relationships to cultural burning. After the group

activity, each student will complete a worksheet to reflect what they learned.

1. Divide students into groups of 3-4.

2. Hand out one set of Plant Cards to each group in a stack, picture-sides facing down, with manzanita on top.

3. Hand out a Note Sheet to each student. Explain that the information they will record on their note

sheets is what will help them be successful in this game.

Lesson 3

Fire as an Agricultural Tool

4. Explain that students will first read through the Plant Cards while taking notes on the Note Sheets

about each plant. Read through the manzanita Plant Card as an example, and discuss the example

notes for manzanita on the Note Sheets. You may want to write the four categories of notes on a

board: Plant Name, Identification, Uses, and Fire.

5. Instruct groups to now take the manzanita Plant Card and place it in the middle of the group, imageside up, so none of the information that was just read can be seen. Explain that they will now work

through the rest of the Plant Cards in their groups until all 9 Plant Cards are placed image-side up in

the middle of the groups. Instruct students to take turns reading one of the plant cards while the rest

of the team takes notes, until the group has worked through all 9 Plant Cards and each student’s Note

Sheet is complete.

6. Point out that after Plant Cards are read, they are placed image-side up and that the information is no

longer visible. This is why it is important for students to fill in notes on the Note Sheets as the Plant

Cards are read aloud.

7. Allow the groups to read through the rest of the Plant Cards in their groups and monitor students to

ensure they are filling out Note Sheets thoroughly for each Plant Card as they work. Note: You may

use the Plant Card file to display and read the Plant Cards as a class or have the students take turns

read through them in their groups. Use the method that works best for your classroom.

8. When students have read through all 9 Plant Cards, pass out one set of Hint Cards to each group, explain:

•

Students will shuffle the Hint Cards, with the “Hint” side facing up and the “Name” side facing

down, and place the stack in front of one student.

•

One student then reads through the top Hint Card out loud, keeping the cards in the stack, so

that the “Name” side is not revealed.

•

After a “Hint” side of a Hint Card is read, the group uses their notes to discuss, name, and point

to which Plant Card the “Hint” side referred to. The students can discuss their notes until there is

a consensus or a majority agree.

•

The Plant Card identified during the discussion is now turned over to confirm the accuracy of the

groups’ identification. The Hint Card may also now be turned over to confirm. Note: If one group

finishes the Hint Cards early, they may continue to play the game by re-shuffling the Hint Cards

and seeing how quickly they can go through them a second time.

Lesson 3

Fire as an Agricultural Tool

Activity Two

Worksheets

Classroom time: 15 minutes

Materials used: Plant Worksheets, Note Sheets, Vocab List

1. Ensure students have access to the internet.

2. Hand out a worksheet to each student.

3. Display vocabulary list for students to reference.

4. Have students pick and use one plant from the activity to complete the worksheet. Students may also

use the Plant Cards or their Note Sheets for reference. For more references, write out the following

webpage for students to look up their plant:

• OregonFlora Home

• Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest (pnwflowers.com)

5. After students have completed the Plant Worksheet, present and discuss the take away concepts

Conclusion / Take-Away Concepts

•

Defining cultural burns: Cultural burns are intentionally set fires practiced with the

knowledge and traditions passed down for thousands of years by Indigenous people.

•

Understanding fire as an agricultural tool: Cultural burns can have many different,

beneficial effects like fertilizing plants by recycling nutrients, “weeding” out plants that

might compete with a target species, or helping to control insects or diseases.

•

First Food Plants: First Food plants have many different uses including seeds, edible

roots, as a sweetener.

•

Material Culture Plants: Plants that provide materials for traditional food, textiles,

tools, and other cultural uses. For example, hazel provides food and sticks for baskets

and iris supplies fiber for nets.

•

Ethical and safe use: Although this lesson introduces food and materials plants to

students, along with their uses, this is not meant to guide students to harvest and use

plants without the guidance and supervision of a knowledgeable adult.

•

Importance: All of us can benefit from knowledge of First Foods plants, plants used in

Material Culture, and cultural burns that are used to tend them. By understanding how

cultural burns benefit plants and animals, we may learn to become better stewards of

fire-shaped landscapes in the future.

Take it Outside

Students can use the plant cards to try to identify the plants (or

find similar, related plants) in parks or forested areas.

NAME

4th - 5th

DATE

Lesson 3: Fire Nourishes the Land, the Land Nourishes Us

My Fire-Adapted Plant

Name of plant chosen

Search for other names for this plant, and if you find them, list them here.

Is it an annual

or perennial?

Annual

Is it a First Food plant, a Materials plant, or both?

First Food plant

Materials plant

Perennial

Find photos of your plant, and draw your plant here.

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Think about using fire as an agricultural tool, to help your plant grow well.

What is one way that fire might help your plant grow well?

Think about a cultural burn of this plant. Some parts of the plant might burn and turn to soil.

Others will survive. Circle the plant parts that will survive:

ROOTS

BRANCHES

LEAVES

SEEDS

Now, imagine your plant one year later, following a fire. Draw it below. What has

changed about your plant after the fire? Label these changes on the left and connect them

to your picture.

Lesson 3: Fire Nourishes the Land, the Land Nourishes Us

NAME

4th - 5th

DATE

Lesson 3: Fire Nourishes the Land, the Land Nourishes Us

Note Sheet

Plant Name

Identification

Uses

Fire

(Food, Materials)

Manzanita

tree, chocolatecovered bark, bellshaped flower

berries for sugar

cold drinks

seeds need

fire, burls

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Plants with flower structures that look

like upside down umbrellas are known

as “umbels.” This native umbel has

delicate white flowers and a root that

can be eaten raw or cooked.

The only part of this plant not covered

in oils is the flower, and to preserve

moisture, this plant closes the flower

most of the day.

This plant is a geophite with edible bulbs

that were once the most widely traded

food (after salmon) in the

Pacific Northwest.

This tree is grown by farmers for use

in cough syrups, and has hollow stems

that people can make tools and musical

instruments out of.

This plant has a large, perennial taproot

that can grow to be decades old and

has traditional and current uses as a

powerful medicine for flus, pneumonia

and other illnesses.

This fruit is made of many juicy

druplets around a central core. Its large

leaves have been used for teas and as

drying mats to preserve the fruits.

The flower of this plant is called a

catkin, and the shoots are used in

Indigenous, Siletz basketry.

After a forest fire, some of these shrubs

can resprout from a burl, a swelling at

the junction of the roots and stem that

can survive fires. This shrub makes sweet

berries that have often been collected and

used to make sweet beverages.

This endemic plant is not eaten by

humans. It has a single, central,

strong fiber found in the leaf that

has been used to make nets, ropes,

or in baskets

Siskiyou Iris

Thimbleberry

Hazel

Camas

Elderberry

Fernleaf

Biscuitroot

Manzanita

Yampah

Madia

Manzanita

Identification

Manzanitas are evergreen shrubs with smooth, chocolate-colored bark and round leaves. They bloom in late winter or

early spring, providing some of the first pollen and nectar of

the season to pollinators. The flower petals are fused together

into cups that hang upside down. These petals protect the

pollen and nectar from spring rains. Pollinators have adapted

to these bell-shaped flowers, some simply chew through the

flowers, leaving holes, and certain bees can buzz at the perfect

pitch to cause pollen to drop from the flowers!

Food

Manzanita fruits are often gathered when they are dry, used

as a sweetener in a variety of foods, and to make refreshing,

sweet drinks.

Fire

After fire, some resprout from a swelling at their base (called

a “burl”). Branches atop burls may only be as old as the period since the last fire, but the burl and underground parts

can be hundreds of years old.

Greenleaf manzanita

Arctostaphylos patula

art by Zoe Keller

Camas

Identification

Camas is a perennial plant with edible underground bulbs. Its flowers

have 6 purple petals and bright, yellow anthers (the part of the flower

that contains pollen and is at the end of a stalk). Camas often grows

in wet meadows.

Food

Camas is a very special food plant. At one time, camas was the most

widely-traded food in southwest Oregon, after salmon. Many places

where Europeans first settled, built farms, and established cities in

Oregon were ancient gardens of camas, tended to by Indigenous

people for thousands of years.

Fire

Camas is a geophyte: a plant with underground parts that survive

when conditions above ground are too harsh. Camas bulbs can

survive in soils for years without flowering...even decades! When

fires burn plant materials that have built up on the soil surface, that

matter is released into the soil, where it can be used by camas bulbs.

The removal of material on the soil surface can also help sun warm

the soil, which can help dormant bulbs flower.

Camas plant and seed head

Camassia quamash

art by Zoe Keller

Tarweed

Identification

Few plants are better than tarweeds at preserving water, a precious

resource in our dry summers. Every part of a tarweed plant is

covered with oils that help keep moisture from evaporating through

the plant. The only part of the plant not covered with oils is the

flower. To keep moisture from escaping there, the plant closes its

flowers each day as the sun rises, then opens them again at night.

Food

Tarweed seeds, like the rest of the plant, are high in oils and

have been collected and used in high-energy foods or for cooking oil.

Traditional harvests utilize special sticks to knock the seeds loose and

tightly woven baskets to collect and carry the seeds. Reports say that

traditional harvests are a community affair involving many people

and that the “swish, swish” sounds of many sticks and baskets were a

familiar summer sound of the grasslands.

Fire

Traditional harvests often include the use of fire before harvests. Fire

removes the stickiness of tarweed’s stems and leaves, making seed

collection easier. Fire can also slightly roast seeds and enhance flavor.

Tarweed

Madia spp.

art by Zoe Keller

Yampah

Identification

Yampah is a perennial plant with an underground edible root. It has

delicate white flowers that bloom in midsummer. Yampah’s flower stalks

radiate in all directions from the main stem in the shape of an upsidedown umbrella. This umbrella-shaped flower structure is shared by all

members of its plant family, the “umbels.” Many spices and food plants

are in this plant family, including cumin, dill, fennel, caraway, and carrots.

Other members of this plant family are highly poisonous (like poison

hemlock). Proper plant identification is essential to utilize umbels safely!

Food

Yampah is a special food plant in many Indigenous cultures. Its

roots are edible raw or cooked and provide a powerful source of energy.

Fire

Yampah’s edible root survives extreme conditions above ground,

including frozen winters, dry summers, and even fire. Plants with

underground storage parts that can survive these harsh conditions even

as the above-ground parts die are called “geophytes.” Cultural burning

can help maintain open prairies, where yampah and other geophytes

thrive. The fires can recycle nutrients to underground parts and help

keep areas clear for sun-loving prairie plants like yampah.

Yampah

Perideridia spp.

art by Zoe Keller

Blue Elderberry

Identification

Elderberry is a mid-sized tree with large compound leaves,

clusters of white flowers, and blue or purple berries.

Food (and music)

People use elderberry’s large clusters of flowers for teas

and drinks, the sweet berries for foods and medicines, and

their hollow stems to make musical instruments and tools.

Blue elderberries are typically cooked before eating. They

are commercially grown by farmers across the northern

hemisphere for use in cough syrups.

Fire

Elderberry trees send up new stems and sprouts each year.

Over time a single tree can crowd itself, and its branches may

rub against one another and slowly weaken. Fires can burn

weakened branches, allowing a tree to more efficiently use its

energy on production of healthy leaves, flowers, and berries.

Elderberry

Sambucus cerulea

art by Zoe Keller

Bisquitroot

Identification

Biscuitroots are wildflower plants with large perennial taproots.

Flowers emerge in mid summer, from a central stalk that sends

out a set of smaller stalks at one point, like an upside down

umbrella. (Flowers with this structure are called “umbels.”

Another umbel is the plant “yampah”.)

Food

Roots have traditionally been dug, pounded, and preserved

into biscuit-type foods. Some Biscuitroots’ taproots can grow

several feet deep and live to be decades old. Fernleaf Biscuitroot

is not only eaten, but it also has traditional and current uses

as a medicine. More than one Indigenous name for this plant

has been translated to “big medicine.” The plant is a powerful

treatment for many sicknesses, and is wild-collected to create

medicines available in stores.

Fire

Fire can return nutrients from stalks to the soil where they

can be absorbed by the perennial roots in the future. Fire can

also keep areas clear so they receive the ample sunlight that

biscuitroots thrive in.

Fernleaf Biscuitroot

Lomatium dissectum

art by Zoe Keller

Siskiyou Iris

Identification

The Siskiyou iris is a small wildflower that grows only in southern Oregon and

northern California. Plants that only grow in one certain area are said to be

“endemic” to the area. Siskiyou iris is rare and endangered. It is estimated that

there are only a few thousand individual plants of this species, all within a fairly

small area in the Cascade–Siskiyou region. Many other species of iris grow in

southwestern Oregon. Some are common and widespread, while several are

endemic to certain areas.

Food (and music)

Iris has traditionally been used in making bags and nets. A single strong fiber

found in the center of the leaf can be used to make sturdy thread, string, rope,

and cordage. Although Iris and other plants used for materials may not be

eaten, the nets, cordage, and baskets are essential parts of traditional ways of

capturing, storing, and processing foods.

Fire

In areas where iris was gathered for cordage by Indigenous people,

fire was often used to ensure a good supply of plant material. iris roots survive

through the winters and form patches. Burning around iris patches clears the

area for the iris to grow well, and recycles nutrients from leaves, sticks, and pine

needles on the ground into the soil, making them available to the Iris.

Siskiyou Iris

Iris bracteata

art by Zoe Keller

Hazel

Identification

Hazel is a deciduous shrub that often grows under the partial shade

of larger trees like pine and fir. In winter long, slim, cylindrical flower

clusters called catkins appear and dangle downward, tinseling the

branches. Wind carries the pollen from the catkins to tiny reddish

florets along the stem, and from there, hazelnuts form.

Food

Hazelnuts are an important food plant for Indigenous people, often

harvested by the basketful, hulled by hand at leisure, and dried in shell

for winter/spring. They are also grown commercially by farmers.

Fire

Hazel shoots (the young, new growth) are important for Indigenous

basketry and in making other cultural materials. Basket makers

prefer hazel shoots that are long, straight, and healthy. The roots of

the shrub survive low-intensity fire and send up new straight sprouts

the following year. In areas where fire is not or cannot be used, basket

makers may prune the plants to stimulate this growth.

Hazel

Corylus cornuta

art by Zoe Keller

Thimbleberry

Identification

Thimbleberries are made of tiny, juicy drupelets around a central

core, like a raspberry. When the fruits are removed, a thimblelooking core remains on the plant, hence the name. Once

removed from the plant (a process that easily damages fruit flesh),

thimbleberries decay quickly. Since they damage so easily you most

likely will not find thimbleberries in the grocery store.

Food (and music)

Food uses of thimbleberry include fruit preserves and beverages,

food from roots, and medicinal uses of leaves for stomach aches

and issues involving blood. The leaves of thimbleberry can grow

to be 8 inches or wider, and some people have used them to make

a drying mat to dry the berries.

Fire

Thimbleberries have perennial root systems that can form thickets

of plants that spread out over time. Dense thickets have root systems

that help hold soil in place and retain soil moisture. Thimbleberry

plants often grow successfully when planted in disturbed areas or

after fires.

Thimbleberry

Rubus parviflorus

art by Zoe Keller

6th - 8th

Lesson 4

Black to Green

Creature Collage

Fire and Biodiversity, part two

NGSS: MS-LS1-5, MS-LS2-1, MS-LS2-4

Summary

60-80 min

Fire is so important to the biodiversity of ecosystems throughout the Western United

States that it is recognized as the keystone ecological process. Various intensities of burns,

especially in southern Oregon forests, can be characterized as low severity, mixed severity,

and high severity. Students will learn about the interconnections between the fire-affected

landscape and biodiversity. Utilizing the southwest Oregon region as a case study, students

will think critically about ecological relationships between the fire regimes and wildlife

habitat by collaboratively creating a collage.

GOALS

CLASSROOM PROCEDURE

•

Students will hear about, view images of, and

discuss the roles that fire plays in supporting

biodiversity within an ecosystem.

1. Introduction and discussion of fire

and biodiversity relationships

•

Students will apply prior understandings of

biodiversity, species adaptations, and habitat to

the relationships of various fire regimes in two

classroom activities.

•

Students will work collaboratively to create

a model of species that live in the post-burn

habitat created by mixed-severity fire.

2. Activity 1: Fire Severity Pictures,

What do you think?

(interactive presentation)

3. Activity 2: Black to Green

Forest Collage

4. Discussion and conclusion

Preparation

• Print and prepare for each group of 3-4 students:

• Black to Green Landscape Drawing (collage background)

• Creature Cards

• Scissors

• Glue or tape

• Color pencils or markers

• Optional: have students work in groups to cut and arrange Plant Cards and Hint Cards

MATERIALS

• Student notebook and pencil for taking notes

• Fire Severity Pictures Powerpoint presentation

• Black to Green Landscape Drawing (2 pages) for each group of 3-4 students

• Creature Collage card pages for each group of 3-4 students

• Scissors, coloring pencils, crayons, or markers for each student

• Glue or tape for each group of 3-4 students

Vocabulary and Terms

Chaparral: a habitat dominated by shrubs and maintained by high-severity fire. Chaparral is important to

many birds, deer, elk and other wildlife and is considered an endangered habitat type in southern Oregon.

Early-seral forest: forest ecosystem that regrows after a high-intensity fire, before re-establishment of a

mature, closed forest canopy.

Fire regime: the generalized pattern, frequency, and intensity of wildfires that occur over long periods of

time (e.g. hundreds and thousands of years).

Keystone process: an ecological event that significantly influences the ecosystem and helps to initiate

further evolution of the ecosystem.

Klamath–Siskiyou: ecological region of southern Oregon and northern California; includes the Siskiyou

Mountains, Rogue and Klamath River watersheds. This area is renowned for extremely high biodiversity.

Mixed-severity fire: the pattern of fire in mountain forests in which the burned landscape is a

combination of unburned areas, medium burns, and heavily burned areas.

Stand: a patch of forest that is in one given area and has fairly related characteristics in tree species, age,

size, arrangement, and other forest conditions.

Tree plantation: stands of same-sized trees in rows, often of the same species, that are planted for timber.

Tree plantations are low in biodiversity and are less resilient to forest fires and other disturbances.

Lesson 4

Black To Green Creature Collage

Introduction

Fire has sculpted the landscape over countless millennia by creating a cycle of growth, cleansing by flame,

and regrowth once again. Fire is considered a keystone ecological process since it greatly influences all

components of the ecosystem including wildlife habitat, human activity, soil nutrients, plant species that

regrow after fire, and features like downed wood and snags (standing dead trees) that serve as shelter.

Various fire regimes, or ways in which fire can burn, create different types of post-fire habitat and affect the

biodiversity across the landscape. Fire regimes are characterized by patterns of how hot fires burn and how

often they burn in a particular place. We will explore some specific Southwest Oregon species, particularly

how their adaptations to living with fire and their interconnected existence contributes to biodiversity.

Discussion Points

1. Review Concepts of Fire and Biodiversity from Lesson 2 (page 11)

2. Read the passage below to introduce students to different types of fire regimes and how they can

interact with different habitats.

Fires wash across the lands like many other weather processes, greatly affecting some areas and barely

touching others. This can be described as mixed-severity fire, meaning some places burn really hot

and some places burn less hot. In places with low fire severity, there is little burning of the overstory

vegetation, or the tops of the trees. In areas with moderate fire severity there is considerable but not total

overstory burning. In areas with high severity, there is complete burning of the overstory. When looking

at the diversity of fire types across the land, we can describe the landscape as a fire-created mosaic — like

an interwoven patchwork quilt of various stages of post-burned habitats.

Defining low-, mixed-, and high-severity fire

Fires affect the landscape in a diversified, or heterogeneous (not uniform) way. Factors like topography,

elevation, human activity, and landforms can influence fires to burn at different temperatures, and

return at different intervals over time (discussed in Lesson 1). Indigenous or cultural burns have had

a significant influence on historic fire regimes in this region (discussed in Lessons 3 and 5), affecting

different places depending on the native foods being managed.

Low-severity fires are common in places with limited fuels (for example, where there is mostly short

vegetation as in a pine or oak savannah) and have limited flammability (for example, where there is a lot

of bare ground or rock). In fuel-limited ecosystems, fires generally have low severity, cover large areas,

and are fairly frequent.

High-severity fires are typical in Oregon’s Coast Range and western Cascade Range. These wet, cool forests

may experience infrequent and large fires facilitated by extremely dry and warm springs and summers or

high winds. Some shrublands and grasslands in central, eastern, and southwest Oregon also burn at high

severity, but more frequently than forests. East of the Cascade Range, most wildfires are ignited by lightning,

whereas west of the Cascade Range, most are ignited by human activity. (Dalton 2021)

Mixed-severity fires are complex and are the least understood across the western United States because

many of the ways scientists reconstruct fire history were developed for low- or high-severity fires.

Characterized by variability in burn intensity and plant mortality, they are influenced by life histories of

the plants and vary with water availability and topography. (Dalton 2021)

Lesson 4

Black to Green Creature Collage

Fire Severity Characteristics and Effects

(also provided in the Fire Severity Pictures Slide Show for Activity 1)

Fire Regimes*

Characteristics and Landscape influence

Habitat Benefits

Low severity

Lightning and Indigenous cultural burns

can be low severity, estimated to occur

every 3-30 years. Low-severity burns of

valley bottom and low foothills tend to

create open forests with oaks and pines,

growth in grove clusters and grassy

clearings, and scattered shrubs across the

landscape.

Opens up forest canopy,

creates mineral ash and

increase soil nutrients,

invigorates understory and

groundcover species, triggers new pine, hazel, and

oak growth.

Mixed severity

Lightning and localized Indigenous

cultural burns can be mixed severity,

estimated to occur every 30-100 years.

Mixed-severity fires are diverse, patchy

and irregular in pattern at the stand and

landscape scale. The range of fire intensity

will create mixed forest types across the

landscape that are also patchy, ranging

from dense conifer forests to open, regenerating shrub stands.

Creates a diversity in forest

type and forest structures

across the landscape, and

thus, a diversity of species

take advantage of the varied

habitat types.

Mixed-severity fire occurs at high mountain elevations, and is limited by snow

pack, moist springs and meadows, and

rocky outcrops.

High severity

These fires may occur every 50-100 years

depending on vegetation type, topography, past fire history, soil type, and other factors. High-severity fire will often

reburn the same areas. They are typical in

brush fields and pine stands at both high

and low elevations. High-severity fires

may burn in patches across open shrublands, or in uphill strips on steep mountain slopes.

Helps maintain chaparral and early-seral forest

habitats. Creates ongoing

regrowth and sprouts that

provide forage for rodents,

deer, and elk. Depending

on the geology, it may even

break down rock or create

various features in the soil.

*Note for students: Keep in mind that generalizations which humans use to describe patterns in nature

may not always hold true. Patterns in nature, such as fire regimes, are always changing and do not follow

hard and fast rules. Fire ecology is complex and something that scientists continue to study.

Lesson 4

Black To Green Creature Collage

Activity One

What do you think? Interactive presentation

1. Utilize the Fire Severity Pictures slide show to illustrate different fire regimes and what they look

like on the landscape as the forest grows back.

2. As you move through the slides, ask students to do a quick chat with a buddy (30 seconds), then ask

for a raise of hands: “Who thinks this slide shows a low-severity fire? Mixed-severity? High-severity?”

3. Have students discuss evidence in the photo that led them to their opinion.

4. Read the notes on the bottom of the slide to reveal the answer and more information about the

pictured landscape.

Discuss

Prompt students to think, pair, share:

What are some examples of plant conditions and habitat features on the landscape that might affect how

hot a fire burns? Remind students of the wildland fire triangle (see Lesson 1).

Ask students to take a few minutes to think and/or write down a couple of ideas before discussing with a

partner. Have partners then share their ideas with the class to start a discussion. Examples below:

•

Fires may grow hotter from having lots of dry plant material in a specific area. An example of

when this happens is in areas that have been heavily logged and then replanted with dense timber

plantations, or when large piles of branches and other logging debris are left behind.

•

Fires may burn less hot when they move to places that are more moist such as north-facing

slopes, river’s edges, valley bottoms, lower thirds of mountains, and ravines.

•

Fires may stop burning when they come up to a rocky hill slope, bare ground, a river, or a

wetland. An interesting example is seen in beaver habitat where the beaver’s pond habitat creates

a fire break because it is a flooded area in a creek.

Activity Two

1. Break students into groups of 3-4 and provide them with group materials: Black to Green

Landscape Drawing by Sarah Burns (which will serve as the collage background for the Creature

Cards), colored pencils or markers

2. Ask students to each take 4-5 Creature Cards, then read and share the information on their cards

with their group members. Optional: students may color in each of their cards.

3. Ask students to work together to decide where to place the Creature Cards on the Black to Green

Landscape drawing. They may consider factors like where the species prefers to live, how long ago a

fire burned, and/or how intense a fire burned.

Lesson 4

Black to Green Creature Collage

Class discussion

Hang each group’s complete collage up on the walls around the classroom.

1. Ask students to reflect on the arrangement of creatures across the landscape.

2. Have students share with the class why they chose the placements for different animals in

theirhabitat. Acknowledge that multiple answers are possible because there is variation in the

landscape, as well as animals’ habitat needs.

3. Ask students to compare and contrast the arrangement of creatures and think about why there

may be differences between collages.

Further example prompts:

• How do different creatures react to the post-burned landscape?

• Which species utilize features in forests that have experienced high-severity burns?

Take it Outside

Bring your students to a nearby forested area for a field trip and make

observations about how fire has influenced the forest. Ask students to

consider concepts from the classroom discussion, and search for clues

such as:

• Fire scars at the base of old trees or inside old stumps

• The diversity of size of trees versus the number of fire scars they can find

• Lightning-struck trees that have fire scars that spiral around the trunk

• Recently burned areas and which trees have survived, which ones are sprouting back

• Features on the landscape that may have influenced the spread, or slowing, of fire

Take-Away Concepts

and Further Connections

• The way in which forest fires burn is influenced by vegetation, weather conditions, human

activity, and features on the landscape.

• Fire is an important ecological process, contributing to the diversity of species in Oregon.

• A diversity of plants and wildlife are adapted to survive or thrive in the post-fire landscape.

• Fires burn at variable severities across the landscape and affect future growth of the forest and

the habitat for a diversity of species.

• Landscape features, soil, and water affect the post-fire regrowth of plants and wildlife habitat.

Lesson 4

Black To Green Creature Collage

Conclusion

Fire is essential to Oregon’s ecosystem in many ways: it recycles nutrients, helps to break apart rocks and

form new soil, forms wildlife habitat, and triggers new plant growth. A mix of fire severities over past

millennia have shaped the current landscape as we know it today. Because fire burns in a diversity of

ways and is variable across the landscape it can further the diversity of living things in an ecosystem. The

sum total of mixed-severity fire across the landscape can be described as a fire-created mosaic.

Online Video Resources

Disturbance

19 minute film

https://vimeo.com/groups/future/videos/8627070

Exploring with Dick Hutto Episode 15

Bird diversity and habitat after Wildfire

9:46 minute film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTl-naywNyY&list=PL7

F70F134E853F520&index=16

Lesson 4: Black to Green Creature Collage

Lesson 4

Black to Green Creature Collage

Beaver: greatly affect their wetland habitats by building dams and lodges. As they improve wetlands, they are also creating natural fire breaks on the landscape that remain green after a fire

has gone through.

Black-backed woodpecker: depend on burned trees for their homes and insect foods.

Black bears: area able to roam great distances and enjoy the black-green edges of the post-fire landscape. In the years following fire they feast on the regrowth of berries, shrubs, and small wildlife.

Black-tailed deer: like to forage for grasses and shrub shoots that grow on the edges of meadows and resprout after burns.

Coyote: are some of the most adaptable creatures in North America. They will hunt for rodents

that proliferate in burned areas.

Deer Mouse: due to increase in seeds and insects, mice populations can increase after fire.

Coho Salmon: are endangered in part because of habitat loss due to pollution, dams and loss

of gravel in rivers to lay their eggs under. The powerful disturbances of wildfire, postfire landslides, and debris flows over time can enrich in-stream habitats (eg with gravel for spawning

and logs for cover), enhancing long-term fish survival and productivity. (Kirkland 2017)

Clark’s nutcracker: Post-burned forests can provide habitat for the Clark’s nutcracker to store

its pine seeds. In return to support the forests, the Clark’s nutcracker initiates forest regrowth

after large fires by moving pine seeds from long distances (Coop and Schoettle, 2009)

Morel mushrooms: will sprout in large numbers for several years after fire because the heat and

soil disturbance trigger them to grow.

Melanophila beetle: commonly known as fire chaser beetles, are attracted to forest fires because

they use freshly burnt (and sometimes still-smoldering) wood to lay their eggs. They detect fires

with specially developed infrared receptors and will flock to a fire while it is still burning.

Spotted Owl: are adapted to take advantage of patches of moderate-severity fire. They use

standing dead snags for perches to hunt rodents from, especially if there is nesting habitat nearby. Some studies suggest that they can live in forests regrowing after mixed-severity fires with

up to 70% being high-severity burn. (Lee 2020)

Red tailed hawk: are an extremely adaptable species that can live in many different environments. They prefer open areas and open forests, and will hunt for rodents and small birds - all

things that fire can help to promote. The have been reported to be attracted to fire and

smoke and even feed on grasshoppers fleeing from fires. (Tesky 1994)

Western bluebirds: are insectivorous (insect-eating) birds that find opportunities to feast in

post-burned forests. The insects are some of the first life to recolonize the post-burned forest.

Lesson 4

Black to Green Creature Collage

Lesson 4

1. CUT ON DOTTED LINE

2. GLUE OTHER PAGE TO THIS SECTION TO COMPLETE THE PICTURE

Lesson 4: Presenter Notes

Fire-Severity Pictures

Slides 1 - 5

Present to students about the differences between low-, mixed-, and high-severity fire definitions

Slide 6

The Grizzly Creek Fire was a small fire of less than 400 acres in southwest Oregon, September 2020. It burned

mostly in homogenous timber plantation stands, and some in second-growth Bureau of Land Management

forests. The second-growth forest shown here was likely logged in the 1960’s, and the largest trees standing are

between 60-100 years old, here showing a mixed-severity burn.

Slide 7

The Grizzly Creek Fire was a small fire of less than 400 acres in southwest Oregon, September 2020. It burned

mostly in timber plantation stands like this one, and some in second growth BLM forests — here showing a

high-severity burn. This timber plantation can be described as homogenous since all of the trees are the same

age, size, and species — approximately 20-30 year old lodgepole pine.

Slide 8

This shot from the Kalmiopsis rim in the high-country depicts a mixed-severity burn from the 2017 Chetco

Bar fire. Notice the burn came up the hillside in the photo but burned only certain portions of the rim (right

side of picture). Picture by Vesper Meadow Education Program 2021

Slide 9

This photo is just over the rim from the previous picture, a few hundred yards away. The mixed-severity burn

of the Chetco Bar fire that occurred here in the wilderness burned hot on the rim, but less so in this area near

to a spring, and on the northerly aspect.

Slide 10

This high-elevation forest burned in the 2020 Slater Fire at a mixed severity as the shrubs and small trees in

the foreground burned at a low to moderate severity (they still have smaller twigs). In the distance patches of

hotter fires are black, moderate fire in orange, and low to no fire in the green areas.

Slide 11

This stand of old pine trees ranging from 200-600+ years old near Cedar Basin in the Red Butte Wilderness

easily withstand low- and mixed-severity burns, as evident by the recent fire scars or “cat faces” on their trunks.

Slide 12

This huckleberry patch remains below a mixed-conifer overstory in the southern Cascades in southwest

Oregon. Patches like these have been maintained with low/mid-intensity fire by Indigenous people for a very

long time — this agricultural practice is part of a deep and extensive web of understanding called Traditional

Ecological Knowledge — and in this case, the cultural burning can enhance the quality of the patch by

encouraging new shrub growth, canopy gaps and other benefits.

Learn more about cultural burning in subsequent lessons.

Lesson 4 Black to Green Creature Collage

6th - 8th

Lesson 5

Burning for Basketry:

Engineering Ecosystems with Fire

Fire as an Agricultural Tool, part two

NGSS: MS-LS2-1, MS-L2-4, MS-LS-5

Summary

60 min

Fire is a naturally occurring part of the dry summers of Oregon, and a dependable fire cycle

has created fire-adapted native plant species. Closely linked to natural fire regimes, cultural

burns have been used in southwestern Oregon for thousands of years and have also shaped

the land and plants within it.

Fire suppression policies of the early 20th century deprived landscapes and plants of this

critical ecosystem-engineering process in some areas of Oregon. While prescribed burns

are now recognized as important by federal land agencies, there are many challenges to

reintroducing fire where it has previously been suppressed.

In this lesson, students will study cultural burning of hazel, an understory shrub species

used by Siletz and other Indigenous basket makers. Comparisons will be drawn between

effects of cultural burning, wildfire, and fire suppression on a certain culturally important

species. Students’ evaluations will highlight opportunities that cultural burning and

Indigenous cultural practice offer to forest management and fire policy and planning today.

GOALS

•

Students will understand the long-term effects of fire regimes and fire as a

natural part of the climate in southwestern Oregon.

•

Students understand how Indigenous cultural burning can affect resource

availability for humans, browse for grazing animals, and the mitigation of

future wildfires.

•

Students will understand the opportunities and risks associated with

reintroducing fire (via prescribed and cultural burns) following a period of

fire suppression.

•

In a worksheet, students will use empirical evidence to explain how fire

suppression, prescribed fire, and cultural burning affect populations of hazel plants.

•

In a worksheet, students will interpret data and explain how overstory tree

competition affects the productivity of hazel (and understory shrubs).

CLASSROOM PROCEDURE

1. Activity One: Burning for Basketry (Slideshow)

2. Activity Two: Cultural Burning to Enhance Hazel for Basket Weaving (Worksheet)

3. Activity Three: Two short videos about cultural burning

Preparation

•

This lesson pairs well with Lesson 6:

Leading the Way with TEK, and you may

consider teaching Lesson 6 first

MATERIALS

•

Discussion Points Slideshow

Familiarize yourself with the Burning for

Basketry (slideshow)

•

Projector and screen

•

Student Worksheets

•

Worksheet with answers

•

Coloring pages (optional)

•

Familiarize yourself with the Revitalized

Karuk and Yurok cultural burning study

•

Print Worksheets, one copy per student

Vocabulary and Terms

Basketry:: the creation and use of baskets by Indigenous people for purposes such as food harvesting,

processing, cooking, and storage, for child-rearing (baby baskets), in everyday clothing, and in ceremonies

Cultural burn: traditional use of fire to maintain and manage landscapes for foods and materials, to cook

food, or to hold ceremonies

Fire-dependent environment: where species have adapted to fire cycles and depend on the effects of fire

for growth, reproduction, health, or survival

Fire regime: the particular frequency and intensity of fires over time in a certain area

Fire suppression: a land management practice that focuses on fighting and stopping wildfires

Hazel: a deciduous, perennial shrub that often grows under the shade of larger trees. It is an important

plant for Indigenous basketry and an important agricultural crop for Oregon farmers.

Mediterranean-type climate: includes cold, wet winters and hot, dry summers with a dependable fire cycle

Overstory: the uppermost canopy layer in a forest

Prescribed burn: a fire set intentionally for land management

Understory shrub: a shrub that thrives in the forest layer below the overstory canopy

Lesson 5

Burning for Basketry

Activity One

Burning for Basketry (slideshow)

Classroom time: 20 minutes

Present the Burning for Basketry slideshow, using the information in the speaker notes section of each

slide or print out the Burning for Basketry: Presenter Notes sheet.

Activity Two

Cultural Burning to Enhance Hazel for Basket Weaving Worksheets

Classroom time: 20 minutes

Students will look at data figures from a recent study, analyze and interpret the data, and describe the

physical changes that cultural burns can have on plant growth in hazel populations.The activity is built

using data from the following research paper, included here for reference:

Revitalized Karuk and Yurok Burning to enhance California hazelnut for basketweaving in northwestern

California. Authors: Tony Marks-Block, Frank K. Lake, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Lisa M. Curran. 2021

Instructions:

1. Pass out one worksheet to each student.

2. Instruct students to read through the worksheets and answer the questions. Students may work

together for additional support. Students may benefit from using rulers or other straight edges to

help interpret the graphs.

3. Collect the worksheets for grading and return to the students, or go over answers as a class.

Activity Three

Videos

Classroom time: 20 Minutes

Cultural Burning Today video

Watch this 2 minute video to give students a visual of what a cultural burn looks like today for the Yurok

and other Tribes in northern California. Video includes a short discussion of hazel and hazel baskets.

Question for discussion following “Cultural Burning Today” video:

In what ways do cultural burns like those in the video change the way things grow on the land? Fire

helps spur the growth of plants and animals used for food, and fire creates fresh growth of hazel for good

basketry materials.

Siletz Tribal Elder presents Hazel Basketry materials video

Watch this 4 minute excerpt from a presentation by Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Siletz Tribal Elder. This video

includes a show-and-tell with baskets and hats made with hazel.

Begin video at 4:16 and play until 7:43 for a short presentation of baskets. Play until 20:51 for a longer

presentation of baskets, hats, cradleboards, and more.

Lesson 5

Burning for Basketry

Conclusion

Review and discuss the answers to the questions on the worksheets.

Take-Away Concepts

and Further Connections

• Fire is a natural part of the Mediterranean-type climate and fire

plays a positive role in forest ecology.

• Natural and cultural burns were suppressed in Oregon for many

decades until recently.

• Fire suppression has disrupted important activities associated

with material culture among Native American people.

• Regular cultural burning can have positive effects on plant

populations that surpass the effects of one-time prescribed burns.

• Revitalizing Indigenous cultural practices including fire and

harvesting can enhance forest management.

Take it Outside

Go to a nearby natural area and observe the plant community there. Ask students to look for plant

materials that they think might work well for making baskets, clothing, or other tools or objects. (Refrain

from collecting materials.) In a nature journal, students sketch and take notes about the plant materials

and their ideas about what to make.

Discuss student ideas in a group. How abundant are these plant materials? How much time and area

would students need to forage enough material to create their items? Remind them that Indigenous

peoples use cultural burns to help make sure they could gather enough materials to make important

items. How could fire help enhance the amount or the quality of plant materials for human use?

NAME

6th - 8th

DATE

Lesson 5: Engineering Ecosystems with Fire

Science of Basketry

Read the following excerpts from a study (Marks-Block 2021), then answer the questions below.

“Karuk and Yurok tribes in northwestern California, USA, are revitalizing the practice

of cultural burning, which is the use of prescribed burns to enhance culturally important

species. These cultural burns are critical to the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples, and were

widespread prior to the establishment of fire exclusion policies. One of the major objectives

of cultural burning is to enhance California hazelnut basketry stem production for Karuk

and Yurok basket weavers.

To evaluate cultural burning as a form of human ecosystem engineering, we monitored

hazelnut basketry stem production (stems per shrub), qualities (stem length and diameter),

and shrub density (shrubs per 400 square meters) in 48 plots within prescribed and cultural

burn sites. Socioecological variables that were analyzed included burn frequency (fires from

1989-1019), burn season (winter, spring, summer, fall), and overstory tree area (area of all

tree trunks per plot >10 cm).

We also observed basketry stem gathering to compare travel distances, gathering rates

(stems per minute), and basket weaver preferences across sites with different fire histories

and land tenure.”

What things are being measured in the hazel plants?

What are some socio-ecological variables being analyzed?

What is being measured when observing basket makers as they gather hazel?

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

This figure shows how many basketry stems were found per

hazel shrub 1, 2, and 3 growth seasons after fire was used.

What is the average number

of basketry stems found on an

average hazel shrub, in the first

growing season after burning?

What is the average number of

stems per shrub found in the

second growing season after fire?

This figure shows how the number of good

shoots relates to competition with nearby trees.

Did the hazel produce

more or fewer basketry

stems in crowded areas?

How might thinning trees to reduce overstory affect

stem production?

The last figure shows how long it took to find 300

good stems in areas following: cultural fires, a

wildfire, and fire exclusion (or no fire).

How many minutes did it take to collect

300 stems of Hazel...

Fire Exclusion

... after a wildfire?

... after a cultural burn?

... in an area where fire

was excluded?

Lesson 5: Engineering Ecosystems with Fire

Lesson 5: Presenter Notes

Burning for Basketry

Slide 2

Southwestern Oregon’s climate is known as a Mediterranean-type climate, a type of climate that occurs in

only about 5% of the areas around the world (Kauffmann, 2021). These places share several characteristics,

including cool, wet winters, long dry summers, and a naturally-occuring, dependable fire cycle. Many

species of plants and animals have evolved to thrive in the Mediterranean climate, in what can be called a

fire-dependent landscape.

In this landscape, fires change the land, and the frequency and intensity of fires over a certain time on a

certain part of the land is known as the fire regime.

Slide 3

Indigenous people in this fire-dependent landscape learned how fire affects the land, and learned how

to use fire to provide the food and materials needed for subsistence. The knowledge of how and when

to burn lands to produce certain foods or materials is passed down from generation to generation. Fire

was used very widely, and was perhaps the most utilized land management tool in many parts of Oregon

before the arrival of American settlers (Anderson 2013).

The intentional use of fire by Indigenous people to enhance (or affect) cultural materials can be called

“cultural burning.” Cultural burns were once responsible for a large part of the fire regime of southwest

Oregon, and were responsible for the type, quantity, and quality of plants on the land that sustained

Indigenous populations as well as a diversity of animals. Cultural burns may be applied to large areas, to

patches of certain trees or plants, or to individual trees or shrubs, like this small cultural burn of a hazel

bush. Seasonality, or the time of burn, is very important, and might vary from place to place, from year to

year, or from practitioner to practitioner. This photo shows a hazel plant being burned in early winter, but

other cultural burns of hazel are done in early spring.

Slide 4

Fires, both wildfires and cultural burning, have been removed or suppressed in recent history. There are

three ways that fire has been removed or excluded.

First, when germs from afar and abroad reached Indigenous communities (through trade routes),

epidemics like smallpox and malaria killed many Indigenous people and reduced the number of people

practicing cultural burns.

Second, shortly after early American settlers declared Oregon a new state, Indigenous people were

forcibly removed from traditional homelands to Reservations. In the image in the middle of the slide, you

can see the traditional territory of the Siletz Indians, marked in dark grey, and the Coast Reservation they

were removed to. (The Coast Reservation was also taken from the Siletz Indians later in Oregon’s history.)

When Indigenous people were forcibly removed, their land practices, including cultural burns, were also

removed. Early American and Oregon governments did not recognize fires and fire regimes as natural,

necessary, and beneficial, but rather as destructive and dangerous (NRDC 2003).

Third, the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service initiated fire suppression policies to

protect timber resources and newly-built structures. It was declared that any fire, including wildfires

started by natural causes like lightning, be extinguished as quickly as possible. Fire was suppressed by this

policy for over 100 years in many areas of Oregon.

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Discussion Question:

What do you think happens to an area that evolved with regular fire, when fire is suppressed?

When fires are suppressed, there can be a build up of burnable material. Risks of future fires can increase

with buildup of burnable materials. Populations of plants may also shift, if those plants require fire for

seed germination or other parts of their life cyle.

Slide 5

Let’s look at what happens when fire is excluded from lands where it is a natural part of the ecosystem.

Beginning at the left side of this image, we see tall trees, and under them many small trees and shrubs.

We also see low, dead branches of the taller trees. These are examples of what can happen when fire is

suppressed and a buildup of burnable materials happens. “Surface fuels” are burnable materials on the

soil surface, and the low branches and low-growing shrubs are sometimes called “ladder fuels.” When a

fire moves through the area, it burns the surface fuels (1 on the slide), then quickly spreads to the ladder

fuels (2), and the ladder fuels then pass the fire up to the upper canopy, or the tree crowns. The crowns

of trees are where new growth happens, and trees lack thick bark that can protect them from fires, so fire

that reaches the crowns of trees is more likely to damage or kill a tree.

Slide 6

After years of fire suppression, many land managers and agencies that manage lands are beginning to

recognize something that Indigenous cultures of Oregon understood all along: that fire is a beneficial,

necessary process for landscapes that ought to be applied to the land where and when it would most

benefit. Instead of suppressing all fires, managers and agencies are beginning to return fire to the land.

Prescribed fires are where land managers intentionally set fires to accomplish certain goals. Prescribed

fire can be beneficial in many ways. It can be an effective tool for reducing the fuels we just learned about.

Prescribed fire can also be used to:

•

Minimize the spread of pest insects and disease;

Remove unwanted species that threaten species native to an ecosystem;

Provide forage for game;

Improve habitat for threatened and endangered species;

Recycle nutrients back to the soil; and

Promote the growth of trees, wildflowers, and other plants.

Slide 7

What happens when prescribed burns are led by Indigenous people, groups or Tribes that practice

cultural burning? Different Indigenous practitioners of cultural burning bring particular practices, such

as starting or spreading a fire using plant materials, as shown in this photo from northern California.

Cultural burning practices can differ in:

• How the fire is started, spread, or controlled

• Seasonality

• Location (for example, in a forest or in a meadow)

• What plant(s) are being burned

Let’s learn more about cultural burning as it relates to the hazel plant, a plant used for food and in basketry.

Lesson 5 Engineering Ecosystems with Fire

Slide 8

The hazel plant is deciduous, meaning it is a plant that sheds its leaves in the fall. It is a perennial plant.

Hazel plants are shrubs that survive year after year. They are a native shrub that often grows under the

shade of larger trees. They are an important plant for Indigenous basketry, and they are an important

agricultural crop for Oregon farmers, too.

Slide 9

Here is a look at the hazel plant through the seasons.

Clockwise from top left:

1. Early spring: hazel plants have both male and female flowers, and the male flowers are long and

cylinder-shaped (a flower part called a “catkin”). Flowers are wind pollinated.

2. (Top) Spring and summer: pollinated flowers begin to develop into seeds, underneath a

protective, beaked-shaped layer

3. (Right) Mature hazel seeds, hazelnuts, are an important food source and agricultural crop

4. (Bottom right) Fall: leaves turning yellow

5. (Bottom left) Winter: buds at the growth tips of stems are dormant

Slide 10

Baskets are a very important tool to traditional Siletz and other Tribes’ lifeways in Oregon. Indigenous

people have used baskets for many purposes: food harvesting, processing, cooking, and storage, for childrearing (baby baskets), in everyday clothing, and in ceremonies.

These three pictures show a ceremonial Siletz basket cap (hat) made from hazel and other materials. In

the first picture, the close up, you can see the fine weaving and different materials used. In the second,

middle picture, you can see the entire basket cap. The patterns, also called “overlays,” used by the basket

weaver are named—this one is called the “dance knife.” The white is beargrass, the black is maidenhair

fern, and the twine (brown color) is split spruce root. In the third picture, you can see the inside of the

the cap. As the base, this basket cap contains hundreds of individual hazel sticks radiating from the

center like spokes on a wheel. Spruce root “weavers” are used to hold the hazel stick spokes together by a

technique called “twining,” and in an overlay (pattern). (Joseph Scott, personal communication, 2021)

Basketry requires not only the knowledge of weaving, but also the knowledge of tending to and gathering

the plant materials. In order to ensure enough materials are ready and accessible for making baskets,

Indigenous basket makers have learned that regular tending practices like pruning and burning increase

the production of certain usable plant materials, like hazel. Let’s look at how this works.

Slide 11

Basket makers prefer to use shoots of hazel that are long, straight, unbranched, young and healthy.

Tending practices like burning or coppicing (pruning old growth to the ground) can result in more

shoots of usable quality to emerge in future years.

Let’s look at an illustration of how this works.

Fire Ecology & the Human Relationship

Side 12

On the left, we have a hazel bush. Notice that some of its branches are older and thicker, while some are young.

Discussion Question:

If you were a basket maker, how many usable hazel sticks do you see in this first hazel plant?

Most of these hazel branches are at least a few years old, and fairly thick...too thick for making a basket

Basket makers depend on large amounts of hazel sprouts for materials. One way to induce hazel plants to

produce many sprouts is to cut back the branches (when the plant is dormant, in winter or early spring).

When branches are cut back to induce sprouts, it is called coppicing. A coppiced hazel plant is shown in

the picture on the right. Basket makers and people using plants for materials have been coppicing plants

all over the world for thousands of years.

In addition to coppicing, Indigenous basket makers tending to hazel plants may lay the cut branches

down in place, add dead, dry, burnable branches from nearby, and set them all on fire. This practice

removes weak growth, fertilizes the hazel plant by adding the charcoal to the soil, and, if there are any

insects or diseases that affect hazel plants, fire may disrupt their life cycle.

Slide 13

Now let’s look at what happens to a burnt, coppiced hazel plant the following spring. Several young

shoots have emerged. They have the qualities that basket makers prefer to use. They are long, straight,

unbranched, young, and healthy. They are long and straight because the area was cleared by the

coppicing. They are unbranched and straight because they are first-year sprouts. And they are healthy

because the fire helped fertilize the plant and removed any insects or diseases that may have been present

on the hazel plant.

Slide 14

Now that we know about hazel, about its importance for making baskets, and how Indigenous people in

Oregon and California traditionally care for hazel plants, including cultural burns, we are going to learn how

scientists are looking at cultural burning today. Next we will look at some studies where people are beginning

to be able to look at and measure the benefits of prescribed fires and cultural burning on the land.

Lesson 5 Engineering Ecosystems with Fire

6th - 8th

Lesson 6

Leading the Way with TEK:

Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon

Fire and Land Use History, part one

NGSS: MS-LS2-5

Summary:

OSSS: 8.23, 8.24

120 minutes

(can be two 60-minute blocks)

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is knowledge and practice that has been passed

down from generation to generation in Indigenous communities and has been shaped by

the close relationship between Indigenous people and their land. Since the displacement of

Indigenous people from traditional homelands in Oregon in the mid 1800’s, the land has

suffered from the loss of its original stewards’ tending practices, like cultural burning. In

recent decades there has been an increased advocacy for returning fire where it has been

suppressed, and for centering TEK in land restoration.

Students will study the historical shift in Oregon land use from the Long Indigenous

Existence to the era of colonization, compare and contrast land management of the two

eras, and utilize TEK concepts to design and present solutions for environmental issues

influencing fire today.

GOALS

CLASSROOM PROCEDURE

•

1. Activity One: Changing Places, Warm Up

(introduction)

•

Students will watch a video to gain

understanding of a major historical shift

in Oregon land use.

Students will complete a worksheet

to demonstrate understanding of

ecological, social, and economical effects

of shifts in land use.

Students will study and utilize themes

of Traditional Ecological Knowledge to

propose modern design solutions for

maintaining an ecosystem.

2. Activity Two: Understanding Land Use Changes

in Oregon (presentation)

3. Activity Three: Supplemental video

4. Activity Four: Being a Land Steward Worksheet

Preparation

•

Review the introductory Activity One: Changing Places Warm-Up.

•

Review the Activity Two: Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon presentation.

•

Prepare to present the supplemental video (Activity Three).

•

Review Activity Four and print one copy per student of the Being a Land Steward Worksheet

•

Since these four activities may take 2 hours to complete, consider separating them into

two 1-hour periods:

Period One:

• Activity One: Discussion

• Activity Two: Presentation (Part One only, slides 1-17)

• Activity Three: Video

Period Two:

• Activity Two: Presentation (Part Two, slides 18-29)

• Activity Four: Worksheets

• Conclusion

OPTIONAL PREPARATION AND FURTHER RESOURCES

•

Review or use the 8th Grade Tribal History Plans developed through Senate Bill 13, and

check for other lesson plans that have since been developed through SB 13 for your grade.

•

More about Siletz Tribal history, the Tribe featured in the supplemental video, can be

found at the Tribe’s webpage and in the book The People are Dancing Again: The History

of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon by Charles Wilkinson.

MATERIALS

1. Powerpoint Presentation Leading The Way with TEK:

Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon

2. Presenter Notes for Leading The Way with TEK:

Understanding Land Use Changes in Oregon

3. Computer and projector

4. Being a Land Steward Worksheet, one copy per student

5. Writing or drawing utensils for students

6. Blank paper for Warm-Up Activity

Lesson 6

Leading the Way with TEK

Vocabulary and terms

Colonization:: the act of sending people to live in and govern another area, where the newcoming

population retains strong links to their original country and gain significant privileges over original

inhabitants of the area

Commo

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