We Arrive With Fire | Ne-kah Nuue’m Mehl Mech
Since time immemorial, Yurok people have placed fire on the land to maintain a healthy and balanced ecosystem. Over the past 100 years, settlers banned that fire, and the environment and people have suffered. Now, Yurok people are returning fire medicine to the land in order to heal the world.
We Arrive With Fire | Ne-kah Nuue’m Mehl Mech is an Indigenous telling of the complicated story of fire, fire suppression, and the reuniting of good fire and land. The Yurok people of the Klamath River region of California used fire as medicine for the land, and it thrived until settlers made it illegal for Native peoples to place fire on the land. The land languished and the recent spate of wildfires have demonstrated a land in crisis. WE ARRIVE WITH FIRE follows the Yurok people’s efforts to ensure that good fire and the land remain united now and into the future. WE ARRIVE WITH FIRE features the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC), a first of its kind non-profit created and led by tribal members Margo Robbins, Elizabeth Azzuz, and Robert McConnell. The crew work with elders to protect homes, clear out invasive plant species, invite fire practitioners to Yurok lands to learn about cultural fire and educate the community about how to care for their land with fire. While colonizers train crews to extinguish fire, the CFMC teaches how to place fire to return the land to the balance not seen for nearly 150 years and educates the world about good fire.