Ahead of peak wildfire season, the state of California has officially enlisted a local tribe community and fire station as a partner in a mutual aid agreement. It’s the first legal partnership with a tribe in state history.
The new agreement includes an additional Type III fire engine equipped for wildland topography and reimbursement for resources that can include calls for service to anywhere in the state.
The agreement may be new, but the relationship dates back decades. Pala Fire Chief Anthony Ravago told NBC 7 he leads a group of 27 firefighters that service the remote parts of the county, along with CalFire and other agencies.
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On Thursday at the Pala fire station, Nancy Ward of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services thanked the fire station and community by bringing them on as partners.
“It’s a tremendous feeling to have that you have another entity respecting you as Indigenous people and as a tribe and that, there, is a milestone in itself,” said Ravago.
Ward told NBC 7 the move is timely considering the years of drought and frequency of significant fires. But most importantly, as a show of respect to the decades-long partnership helping fight fires.
“They have helped out locally. They have helped out with other things, other than fire. And they’ve helped us in disasters, and so this is kind of a culmination of being able to say thank you and thank you for your leadership in getting us to where we are,” said Ward.
Ward said it hopefully sets a precedent to forge better relationships with other tribal lands all over California -- creating more distance and potentially healing from the troubled history that often times serves as a backdrop for tribal nations and their relationship with the state.
Ravago said it’s all about growth.
“You got to remember we were put in certain areas to be not looked at, but yet we’ve grown from that and we’ve learned from that and we are moving forward. We have to,” said Ravago.
