2025 Giving Cycle Awardee Native Coast Action Network Hosts TREX for 33 Indigenous Burners

In late November of 2025, the Native Coast Action Network hosted a week-long Wildland Fire Basic 32 Training in the context of Prescribed Burn Training Exchange (TREX) for 33 Indigenous burners from across California. Located at UC Santa Barbara's Sedgwick Reserve on the homelands of the Chumash peoples in Santa Barbara County, the training culminated after previous generations of intentional fire and in recent years of building partnerships and planning to support cultural burning on Chumash coastal landscapes. The Climate Science Alliance’s 2025 Giving Cycle in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, Hayfork Watershed Council, UC Santa Barbara Sedwick Natural Reserve, Chumash Fire Department, and UC Davis Native American Studies contributed to this historic training. Each partner and training participant played a critical role in the success of this training.

For millennia, Indigenous peoples have understood fire as a sacred tool and vital partner in nurturing healthy, resilient landscapes rather than a harmful destructive force. This profound knowledge is essential to sustainable land stewardship and ecological balance.

In a dedicated effort to support and amplify these vital practices, the Climate Science Alliance was honored to award the Native Coast Action Network with a 2025 Giving Cycle organizational grant that made it possible for them to host a Prescribed Burn Training Exchange (TREX) that provided a Basic Wildland Firefighter Training (a 32-hour course referred to as “Basic 32”), designed for and by 33 Indigenous burners from across California. During the course of the training, participants changed the name of the training to California Indian Basic 32. Held from November 18-22, 2025 on the beautiful homelands of the Chumash at the Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley, this immersive training was a powerful convergence of tradition and contemporary practice that incorporated place-based learning from the Chumash coastal landscape.

This exchange was uniquely crafted by Native Coast Action Network for Indigenous community members, recognizing that supporting Indigenous people directly is the most effective way to support cultural fire objectives. The training provided wildland fire suppression experience and certification in wildland fire suppression in the context of fire as our relative, prescribed burn planning and implementation, all while centering cultural fire practices, California Indian knowledge (aka traditional ecological knowledge), and cultural-defined burning goals.

The focus of the TREX was to empower participants with the tools and qualifications to lead burning initiatives that restore ecosystem health, protect communities, and revitalize cultural traditions to the greatest extent possible. To support our partners at the Native Coast Action Network and facilitate our own continued understanding of cultural burning initiatives and needs across the state of California’s coastal landscapes, Climate Science Alliance team member Althea Walker participated in the training presentations and engaged with attendees as they received their certification.

The week was more than a technical course; it was a gathering of California Indians, sharing of stories, time and a reaffirmation of the right relationship between people and fire based on Native cultural ethics and protocols. Participants left with new credentials, strengthened connections to each other and a renewed capacity to care for their ancestral lands.

This critical initiative was made possible with the incredible partnerships, vision, and leadership of the Native Coast Action Network. The Climate Science Alliance extends our deepest gratitude to them and to all the partner organizations, instructors, and community leaders who contributed their time, wisdom, and spirit to make this training a success. We also thank the California State Coastal Conservancy who supported this 2025 Giving Cycle organizational grant.

The Climate Science Alliance remains committed to fostering partnerships that elevate Indigenous leadership in climate resilience. By supporting cultural fire practitioners, we are investing in a future where both people and ecosystems can thrive. We look forward to continuing this essential work together.

Through our Giving Program, the Climate Science Alliance directly funds locally-led climate projects and leverages our own expertise and capacity to amplify the community’s impact—helping awardees every step of the way, in whatever way they need us.

Learn more at www.climatesciencealliance.org/giving-program