Tribe works to save ancestral land from fire

By: Sheila Gardner

To the casual observer, the broad flat rock covered with red slurry looks like just another piece of evidence of the efforts to extinguish the Angora fire.

Closer examination shows indentations in the rock revealing it is a grinding stone from the prehistory of the Washoe tribe's aboriginal homeland at Lake Tahoe.

This is the kind of cultural damage assessment in which Washoe tribe environmentalist Darrel Cruz specializes.

With more than 25 years experience fighting wildland fires and his training as an environmental specialist, Cruz, 47, is one of the few people in the United States who can be in front of firefighters' bulldozers as they race to build a suppression line around a raging wildfire.

His work is critical to protect archeological sites. When the devastating Angora fire broke out June 24, Cruz reported to the site.

"Within a few days of the fire, I went up as a resource adviser to protect the archeological monitoring. I was looking for any disturbance of the sites during the (fire) line construction," Cruz said.Cruz found two sites which needed attention.

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