ayne Chapman uses a hand drill to start a coal, which Chumash Elder Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto (seated) will use to start the fire.

Members of the Chumash community gathered at UC Santa Barbara’s North Campus Open Space for an event that none of them had ever witnessed, a practice that had been lost for generations, that most thought would never happen again. More than two centuries since the last cultural burn in the region, they were returning fire to the land in a manner their ancestors may have recognized.