The Barnes Fire started by lightning Sept. 7 and grew as of Wednesday afternoon to more than 5,800 acres. The incident has drawn more than 600 personnel, including California Interagency Incident Management Team 1, Modoc County Sheriff’s Office, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and USFS Modoc National Forest.
With all Lomakatsi wildland fire crews and resources deployed on wildfire incidents across the region, we dispatched a Lomakatsi forestry, trail and recreation crew that actively served on contingency efforts to protect 10 homesites earlier this week through fuels reduction, to create defensible space and support safer wildfire response in the event the fire moves into the housing area. The Northern Paiute Gidutikad Band hosted the five-member Lomakatsi crew composed of Tribal citizens from the Klamath, Modoc, and Harney Counties, and Rogue Basin restoration workforce personnel from Jackson County.
Meldrick One Horse Meza, Representative of Northern Paiute Gidutikad Band Tribal Council, volunteered and recruited others to help the crew clear fuels and raise tree canopy base heights within 100 feet around houses and power lines early in the week. Activities built upon residents’ work on their own properties and dozer line constructed on the ridge above the main housing area, expanding a fuel break between property and the fire’s potential progression in the case of southwest winds.
“We’re here to protect the Tribal community, our homes, our elders, and all of our cultural items,” Meza said from the worksite Tuesday. “This is definitely a wake-up call in regards to keeping our neighborhood and our community safe. I’m glad that this work is happening, we’re learning a lot and the community has pulled together in a huge team effort – that’s something that the community really needed.”
