Pinky Beymer鈥檚 ranch sits on the edge of the Warm Springs reservation in Central Oregon鈥檚 high desert. She pointed to a pile of wood that was once a shed her grandparents built and where they kept horses and chickens.
The old shed was falling down, so Beymer, who raises livestock and helps run a heavy machinery business, set about replacing it with a metal one that鈥檚 less likely to burn.
Wildfire has ripped through this part of the Warm Springs reservation before, and Beymer knows it probably will again someday.
鈥淲e鈥檙e so far out here and we鈥檙e so surrounded with flammable things that we鈥檙e trying to do what we can to not increase fire danger and lose more buildings,鈥� she said.
Beymer has always taken steps to in her 60-plus years in Warm Springs, but she鈥檚 ramped up her efforts since last year鈥檚 Lionshead Fire roared across the reservation. It was one of several wildfires that erupted across Oregon over Labor Day weekend last year.
While fires this year on the Warm Springs have thus far remained relatively small, Beymer is worried about the next big fire to come her way.
鈥淏efore, we were looking at a fire season starting in late spring and ending in early fall,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd now it鈥檚 seven, eight months out of the year, and everything is at risk.鈥�
鈥楶aradigm shift鈥�
Bodie Shaw grew up on the Warm Springs reservation and is now the acting fire chief for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the National Interagency Fire Center. He said megafires the likes of Lionshead were once unheard of on the Warm Springs.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have that decades ago,鈥� he said. 鈥淔ires just never burned that hot.鈥�
Climate change, driven primarily by the widespread burning of fossil fuels, has led to a . That, paired with a , has created the conditions for larger, more destructive fires across the American West, including Indian Country.
This summer, the Dixie Fire in Northern California . The Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon .
鈥淚t鈥檚 not only changed the way we look at fighting our fires, but it changes the way that we respond post-fire,鈥� Shaw said.
For more than a hundred years, federal policy required every fire that started on public lands to be extinguished.
That was a cataclysmic disruption to both the natural rhythm of fire on the landscape and the prescribed fire regimes Indigenous people 鈥� 鈥� .
Agencies including the BIA have tried to in recent years, but . Shaw said it will take a 鈥減aradigm shift as to how we do business鈥� to correct course. Implementing prescribed fire regimes on reservation lands, in particular, is often hampered by and .
鈥淎s much of our public gets used to catastrophic fire, they start to lean towards 鈥榓ll fire is bad fire,鈥欌�� Shaw said. 鈥淎nd we鈥檙e trying to reverse that.鈥�
Signs of life
Back on Pinky Beymer鈥檚 ranch, she popped the tailgate on her maroon pickup and loaded her border collie Rowdy into the bed. They were headed to Trout Lake, which is right in the belly of the Lionshead Fire scar, for the first time in years.
Lionshead laid waste to the landscape, and it could take decades, even a century, to reforest some parts of the scar. Beymer navigated her truck through the tree skeletons on the way to the lake, reminiscing about the shady ponderosa pine forest she knew before.
鈥淓verything in here was just totally shaded,鈥� she said. 鈥淛ust makes your gut turn to look at it.鈥�
Trees still shaded most of the campground that abuts the lake鈥檚 north shore. Beymer parked, got out and walked around, greeting young beargrass with a gentle tug. A young buck with velvety antlers darted across the road.
These were small, surprising signs of life among the destruction.
Beymer鈥檚 father was a firefighter, her mother a lookout on nearby Shitike Butte, so she and her siblings grew up in these woods, learning about good fire and bad fire.
Lionshead was a bad fire 鈥� and Beymer said bad fire has become far too frequent on the reservation. Now, any time she sees smoke, she braces for the worst.
鈥淵ou take a big, deep breath and say, 鈥榃here is it?鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淵ou wonder if it鈥檚 in the timber or somebody鈥檚 home. 鈥� It鈥檚 really, really scary when you know it鈥檚 coming your way.鈥�
Like in many rural areas, here in Warm Springs. That鈥檚 why she鈥檚 replacing wooden buildings and ripping out fence posts on the ranch, so that she鈥檚 ready when the next Lionshead hits.
鈥淎 lot of people on reservations are firefighters,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 what you do. You go in and you try to save the land that鈥檚 home to you.鈥�
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