ARIZONA – In 2002, the Rodeo-Chediski wildfire burned over an enormous area across the White Mountain Apache Reservation and the Sitgreaves and Tonto National Forests. The fire was five times larger than the previous record-setting fire for Arizona, the Carrizo wildfire, which burned part of the same area on the reservation thirty years earlier. The Rodeo-Chediski fire burned most of the watersheds above the Apache communities of Cibecue and Carrizo, leading to years of flooding and depleting the timber that had supported the local sawmill, one of the area’s main employers. A Burned Area Emergency Response team developed emergency rehabilitation plans that lead to a record-breaking reseeding effort and the installation of protective barriers around homes and gravesites to dampen the erosion. Still, people in the community suffered feelings of loss, abandonment and neglect.

I started working for the Forest Service as a researcher a year later. In 2005, I collaborated with the president of the Cibecue school board, the high school science teacher and other community members to establish a summer program for high school students called Ndee Bini’ Bida’ilzaahi (the People’s Vision). Students learned how to study and care for culturally and ecologically important sites in the impacted watersheds, most of which had changed dramatically due to the fire and subsequent erosion.

Our group learned the traditional Apache names for these places and the stories about them while considering the implications of the profound changes. While we confronted the loss of old-growth cottonwoods that had collapsed, along with other important plants that had disappeared, we also witnessed the power of these places to recover with some assistance. Students recorded their experiences in journals and in video interviews, recounting how the program helped them to not only understand their lands, but also their identities as Apache people from Cibecue. Our monitoring efforts, study of historical photos and conversations with elders gave me new insights into how wildfires can change systems.

The program continued for years until the COVID-19 pandemic. During that period, the students implemented restoration treatments at dozens of springs sites. One of my colleagues from the tribe, Mae Burnette, who was tasked with visiting all the springs within the burn area, led us to the sites that were suffering the most. At one of those sites, various teams, including the high school students, had been collecting data for many years after the fire. We learned that erosion had continued and accelerated for twelve years, far longer than the 2 to3 years suggested by published science and the original BAER program.

One student, Javis Davis, completed his senior thesis by collecting and dating charcoal samples from the site and learned that the wetland soils being washed out were up to 8,000 years old. He is completing a graduate degree in hydrologic science at Northern Arizona University. Other students obtained degrees and now work in social services and education.

We all carry these special places within us. Because of this unique partnership, the story of a remote, spring-fed meadow added to our understanding of the effects of giant wildfires, as well as the potential for gradual recovery aided by local, Indigenous caretakers.

I am deeply privileged to have worked with so many wonderful people on these efforts, with support from the agency. I am very proud of the work that we did together to take care of those places, to learn from them, and to share their stories. That work instilled an understanding of how deeply people and places can be connected, and how crises like wildfires and climate change can induce loss while creating opportunities for healing.