Huslia Fire Ecology Workshops: Fire effects on the ecology and people of the Koyukon Region in the western Interior of Alaska

• Main Authors: Chapin, F. Stuart, Natcher, D. C, Trainor, S. F, Huntington, O. H, Huntington, Henry P, Bonanza Creek LTER
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Environmental Data Initiative 2018
• Subjects: Huslia; koyukon; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/8631da17bd7daf9233e0dd0e9130f913; https://portal.edirepository.org/nis/mapbrowse?packageid=knb-lter-bnz.310.21

These reports summarize workshops describing fire effects on the ecology and people of the Koyukon Region in the western Interior of Alaska. The first report summarizes all three workshops and is an oral history of indigenous burning in this part of Alaska. The major effect of fire on people is to reduce access by burning trapping cabins and toppling black spruce trees across traplines. Moreover in summer, the brush is so dense that access is difficult and game is impossible to see. Smoke from wildfires is a serious health problem in some years. Burned areas have a colder microclimate than unburned areas, causing both people and animals to avoid them. The second report centers on the final workshop with primary emphasis on the impacts on the community of Huslia. Fire has several important effects on the residents of Huslia. Fire fighting wages are an important source of income and a source of cross-generational mentorship. Wages are important in paying bills and in buying snow machines, ammunition and boat gas for subsistence activities; fire-fighting wages also have some negative effects through purchase of drugs and alcohol. Local residents feel largely disempowered in decisions related to fire management both because of insufficient opportunities for jobs on fire crews and because decisions about whether fires are suppressed or not are made largely without village input.