Video: Researching wildfire with the Navajo Nation

Connecting with the land and nature plays a large role in many Indigenous cultures. Northern Arizona University's School of Forestry is partnering with Diné College and Navajo Forestry in researching the effects of fire on the Navajo Nation. Through working together, these organizations hope to educate students from all different backgrounds by combining western science and traditional knowledge to learn how fires have shaped the land to be what it is today and how proper resource management could foster healthy growth in the future.

"There were a lot of talks with tribes here in Arizona and New Mexico of getting joint projects going to study the landscape," said Lionel Whitehair, a wildland firefighter who earned his master's degree at NAU.