Editor's note: This story was produced for Our Living Lands, a collaboration of the Mountain West News Bureau, Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, and Native Public Media focusing on the impact of climate change on Indigenous communities across the country.
It’s a sun-splashed morning at the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California’s wood yard, a patch of land about the size of a football field, tucked in a valley about 20 miles east of Lake Tahoe’s south shore.
Magpies, black-and-white birds with blue-tinted wings, land on stacks of lumber and dig for insects. Chainsaws rev and roar and wood-cutting machines crank and squeak. A mist of sawdust hangs in the air.
Foreman Kenneth Cruz, wearing a white hard hat and neon yellow jacket, is watching crewmember Jacob Vann use a chainsaw to cut up logs of thick Tamarack pine.
“That looks dense,” says Cruz, craning his neck to look at the center, or heartwood, of the log Vann is working on.
“Yeah, it is – it’s really dense,” Vann says, tilting up his hard hat to wipe his brow. “You can tell the difference between this one and that cedar. Cut right through that cedar, but when it comes to this Tamarack? It takes a lot sometimes.”
These slices of cedar and pine will eventually be hauled over to the other end of the yard, where a firewood processor is splitting logs into even cuts of firewood.
They bought this heavy-duty machine and other equipment with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service in 2023. Now, the Washoe Tribe produces about a thousand cords of firewood a year. One cord, which consists of about 800 pieces of firewood, provides heating for about one month.
Some surplus firewood ends up on shelves in local gas stations, grocery stores and area campgrounds’ supply shops. Customers who buy a bundle for their fireplace or campsite are also helping the Washoe Tribe’s energy initiative.
“The idea is that for every cord that is sold, that also pays to have a cord cut, split, and delivered to a tribal elder,” Cruz says.
It’s a program called Wood for Elders. It’s similar to a food bank. But instead of food, Cruz and his crew deliver firewood to about 110 Washoe elders – at no cost – so they can keep warm during the cold months. Although winters in the West are trending warmer, research shows that climate change can lead to more severe winter storms and cold snaps, conditions that make a well-heated home essential.
For years, the Washoe Tribe relied on volunteers to split wood from their forests and donate bundles to as many elders as possible. But, they didn’t have a consistent amount of volunteers – or wood.
Now, they have a paid crew that works year-round. That enables them to provide every elder with at least three cords of firewood each winter, which would normally cost someone about $900, Cruz says.
“Some rely solely on wood for their heat,” he notes. “That helps out those people that have a hard time through the winter.”
The Washoe Tribe says nearly three-fourths of members heat their homes with firewood and have the option of another form of fuel, like propane. But one-third heat their homes solely with firewood, says Washoe Tribal Chairman Serrell Smokey.
“They can't afford to pay high prices of propane,” Smokey says. “And if we have long winters with snow, then the firewood is a way that everybody would heat their homes.”
Chairman Smokey says the tribe strategically removes logs from overgrown forests and areas previously scorched by wildfire and turns that timber into firewood. The tribe has a long history of forest stewardship, including the use of cultural fire, but colonial federal policies in the 1900s suppressed their sovereign ability to manage their forestlands. Over the last decade, however, federal fire officials have begun working with tribes and recognizing the value of Indigenous knowledge in environmental policy.
For its Wood for Elders program, the Washoe Tribe partners with the National Forest Foundation, the nonprofit branch of the U.S. Forest Service. The group hauls out damaged logs from forest thinning projects and donates them to the Washoe wood yard to use for their elders’ program.
“Our ability to remove some of this material and put it to good use while also coming up with solutions to address what to do with hazardous fuels, it really is a sort of a win-win in that sense,” says Sam Pankratz, the National Forest Foundation’s Rocky Mountain region manager.
Pankratz says these efforts are even more important as global temperatures rise and wildfires grow more frequent and severe.
Scientific research backs up that sentiment. A 2016 study found climate change had caused the number of large wildfires in the West to double between 1984 and 2015. A 2021 study concluded that climate change has been the main driver of the West’s increasing fire weather – when high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds combine.
“If we don’t take care of the forest, it will take care of itself, and not in a way that we want,” Smokey says. “It’s one lightning strike, one cigarette butt.”
In all, the National Forest Foundation’s Wood for Life program provides wood to tribes in Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Arizona and California. The nonprofit partners with the Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute, Northern Arapaho, Shoshone-Paiute, Eastern Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and Navajo Nation.
In the Navajo Nation, which stretches across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, more than 60% of households – thousands of families – use wood to heat their homes.
“It's a huge benefit because it's used for warming the home, cooking, and everyday needs,” says Rosanna Jumbo-Fitch, the Navajo Chinle Chapter president.
Back at the Washoe wood yard, Cruz is taking inventory of the different types of timber they have on hand.
“Most of it is Jeffrey pine,” says Cruz, scanning the stacks of logs around the yard. “We do have some sugar pine. We have some red fir, white fir, some oak, and we do have some cedar.”
All of it is more wood for their elders.
“To me, it's a good feeling that I think we're doing something good for our communities and for our people,” Cruz says.
He adds that the Washoe Tribe will sell firewood to other tribes across the region if they are low on this precious – and potentially life-saving – energy resource.
This story was also supported by the Indigenous Journalists Association and Solutions Journalism Network's 2024-25 Health Equity Initiative.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
