The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs are still reeling from the Bench Fire, which tore through more than 60,000 acres of the reservation in north central Oregon in July and August, but Indigenous activists are working hard to provide for the community amid an ongoing water crisis with limited state resources.
Wildfires continue to grow more prevalent as a result of global warming, an outcome fossil fuel companies were well aware would come about decades ago, and Indigenous communities are forced to manage disproportionate impacts during a crisis that some see as a continuing erasure of their culture, people, and land.
As firefighting resources were stretched thin across Oregon, and even experienced firefighters were reportedly caught off guard by the erratic nature of the Bench Fire, Indigenous community members stepped in.
Warm Springs remains in recovery, but grassroots organizers who grew up on the reservation have managed to remedy some of the crisis during and after the fire through mutual aid and direct action…