The Deep Connection Between Life and Fire

Perched on a densely forested hill crisscrossed with narrow, winding, often unsigned roads, Frank Lake’s house in Orleans, California, is not easy to find. On my way there one afternoon in late October, I got lost and inadvertently trespassed on two of his neighbors’ properties before I found the right place. When Lake, a research ecologist for the United States Forest Service, and his wife, Luna, bought their home in 2008, it was essentially a small cabin with a few amenities. They expanded it into a long and handsome red house with a gabled entrance and a wooden porch. A maze of Douglas firs, maples, and oaks, undergrown with ferns, blackberries, and manzanitas, covers much of the surrounding area.

“This is a feral orchard,” Lake said as he showed me around, weaving among slender-trunked trees and sprawling shrubs. He was wearing cargo pants, thick black boots, and a camo-print beanie. “This is an old place that Karuk managed.” Lake, who is of mixed Indigenous, European, and Mexican heritage, is a descendant of the Karuk, a native people of northwestern California and one of the largest tribes in the state today. Some of his family members are also part of the Yurok Tribe, which is indigenous to the same region. Lake grew up learning the history and culture of both peoples.

A little ways ahead, we reached a grove of moderately large oak trees. Here, the forest floor was mostly free of vegetation, charred black in places, and littered with acorns. Since 2009, Lake, who is a certified firefighter, has used chain saws, propane torches, and drip torches to strategically thin and burn this particular half acre. Over the years, the controlled burns, or prescribed burns as they are often called, have removed the smothering underbrush, reduced the number of trees, and provided the remaining oaks with much more light and space, creating an orchard similar to those Lake’s ancestors would have managed.

Fire has also kept pests in check. Every year, weevils