[soft inquisitive music] ♪ ♪ - Grandfather, Grandmother, see us here, your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren.

Guide our hands as we bring fire back to the land to restore the ecosystem, to restore our food sources and our medicinal sources.

[chanting in native language] As Native people, everything that you do had to do with prayer.

And so we're sending up prayer to acknowledge that we're bringing fire.

We come in a good way.

You know, we want to bring balance to our land, to take our place as stewards of the land and to take care of it and restore it, to help.

- These forests are cared for by California's Yurok Nation.

- You guys can go ahead and get your fire on.

[laughs] - Since the time of Spanish colonial rule, authorities here have outlawed the Indigenous community's traditional burning practices.

That's only made matters worse.

Now the dense undergrowth is like a tinderbox, awaiting a spark.

As California sets new temperature records, the danger of uncontrollable wildfires increases.

- When you're doing a burn and you're reducing the amount of this understory fuel, then the fire has less to feed it.

It has less food.

Wow, we're gonna see some activity over there.

- Prescribed burns like this are conducted by a large team and only when weather conditions allow.

They're like small, controlled burn lines, which deprive the fire of fuel, helping to keep it under control.

What could turn into a terrifying mega fire next summer is instead a force for good.

- Fire is meant to be a natural part of the ecosystem.

These lands, they evolved with fire.

They depend on fire to be healthy.

So when it's all crowded out with brush, like you see now, all that brush is sucking up water.

It's like if you had a cup of water and there was 20 straws in it, sucking out of it.

How long is it gonna last?

And so the creeks start to disappear.

And the creeks feed the river, which have fish in them.

And if it doesn't have enough water, the water gets too warm.

And the fish, they literally suffocate to death.

[dramatic music] - Fires like this encourage biodiversity, returning the forest to a time before loggers planted it with swathes of fast-growing fir trees.

- Ah-hoo!

Look at that.

We was just full of joy to see them going down because they really suck up the water.

They're like a giant straw on the cup.

[laughs] ♪ ♪ It's really hard to describe it, but it is certainly a great deal of joy.

[laughs] It just makes me laugh with happiness.

It's very exciting.

- Okay, we do have new wicks, so... - Margo's enthusiasm has rubbed off on son-in-law Talon.

- I'm gonna go observe the fire for a little bit.

I love fire.

I feel like I've built a really, an amazing relationship with it.

And when we're out there burning, I know it's truly a way to maintain balance for Mother Earth and for all of us.

[uplifting music] ♪ ♪ - The Yurok Nation nearly lost their traditional fire knowledge, but Talon's kids are absorbing it firsthand from an early age.

- How's gran's boy, huh?

How's gran's boy?

What we started will carry on into generations into the future.

Like, our vision for it will not be completed in our lifetime, by far.

And so it's important to start passing the information down to the next generation.

- My two boys are my world.

I've just been kinda blessed with this fire, you know, in more recent years of my life.

But it's something that they'll get to see, they have seen since babies.

And they just smile so big, and they're like, "Look at the big flames," you know?

- They should be introduced to fire as babies.

And so that's what we do.

It feels really good to know that we're restoring our lands and that with restoration of the land comes restoration of the people.

It brings pride to the people that are engaging with fire.

[inquisitive music] ♪ ♪ [indistinct radio chatter] - It could be burning pretty deep under there.

That's where you'll still see smoke.

Sometimes it's just steam too.

When I first moved here, everywhere else was super brushy.

But with bringing the fire back to the land, I've seen that significantly change.

It's awesome.

And this last year, I've seen more deer in the daytime than I've seen in the last five to ten years past.

- Whoo!

[laughs] I want my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on to have a good place to live.

I want them to know who they are as Native people, to have a healthy river to swim in, to eat salmon, to hike the hills.

I can't change the world, but I can change this small place where we live and then share, share that information with other people.

- The Yurok are restoring balance to the ecosystem and reducing the risk of major forest fires in the future.

But wildfire is only one of many challenges in a warming world.