Growing up on the Washoe tribal land spread across Nevada and California known as Hung-A-Lel-Ti territory, Kenneth Cruz started splitting wood when he was around 12. The youngest of eight — seven boys and one girl, with one brother living elsewhere — to a single mother, Cruz knew he had to help his family to heat their home.
They were poor, but the land provided. “If you wanted to eat,” Cruz said, “you didn’t need a hunting license — you already had your Washoe license.” From an early age he gathered wood from the forests and he and his siblings would then bring the split wood to their granny’s home.
Cruz said when he was younger tribal members used to go into the forest and gather wood, but it was hard on automobiles and the people.
He would load the logs into his brother’s wood splitter, then he’d grab the handle and try to let the machine do the work. Cruz said his sister, then 16, came over and said “What are you doing?” She showed him how to split the wood. As one of their chores, he and his siblings would bring the cut logs back to their home and then to their granny and aunts’ homes to stack in the woodshed.
Almost 40 years later, not much has changed for the Washoes – nor the thousands of Native Americans using wood as their primary heating source. The Census Bureau estimates that 1.9% – or more than 2.3 million households – use wood as a primary heating source. However, in counties with a high percentage of tribal communities, that number often exceeds 30% of households. Cruz, now 56 and the Washoe Tribal Road Department director, oversees the delivery of firewood to roughly 111 elders through the tribe’s wood bank.
To get the amount of wood needed, the Washoe tribe partnered with the National Forest Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the U.S. National Forest Service, and others to cut and bundle logs collected on federal lands and deliver the resulting firewood.
While gathering enough wood to heat tribal homes is the priority, the collaboration also helps reduce wildfires in the area.
An elegant solution to multiple challenges
In 2018 tribal members invested in a truckload of wood for Tribal elders, and the program had such high demand that in 2021 members volunteered to take logs damaged by the Tamarack Fire from the U.S. Forest Service. The tribe processed and bundled the wood and completed the project in 1.5 years, grant administrator Linda Tobey said. In the process, they sold enough firewood to sustain the wood crew’s salaries.
One-third of Native households on Tribal lands live in poverty, compared with 18% of households nationwide, according to a 2024 fact sheet on Native housing from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Families living on tribal lands are almost five times more likely to live in poor housing conditions compared with the general population and 1,200 times more likely to live in homes with heating issues.
Tribes across the country are increasingly turning to wood for heat. At least 66% of Navajo and Hopi tribes use wood to heat their homes. The closing of the Kayenta coal mine in Northern Arizona has pushed more people to use wood for heating, even though it’s a more expensive alternative.
The first year the mines closed, KNAU Arizona Public Radio reported elders were “burning their clothes” and burning weed to heat their homes. About 70% of Washoe members heat their homes with firewood and another form of fuel and 33% heat their homes solely with firewood, according to the tribe.
At the same time the National Forest Foundation, which started its Wood for Life program in 2020, saw an opening. The foundation, the non-profit arm of the U.S. Forest Service, needed to thin trees in the forests near the Washoes due to wildfires.
More than 6,000 wildfires have scorched nearly 1 million acres in California – very close to the average of about 950,000 acres, according to data from CAL FIRE.
Thinning the forests can help reduce the risk, of wildfires, but discarding the logs was an issue – until the partnership with the tribes started. Now the foundation provides wood to 8 tribes, including the Navajo, Ute and Washoe, across Northern Arizona, California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Idaho.
Katlyn Lonergan, 29, the Eastern Sierra & Great Basin program coordinator for the National Forest Foundation said the biggest hurdle to tribal communities getting wood is transportation.
Moving 25-ton truckloads of wood from forests to processing banks requires significant resources and coordination, Lonergan said. The tribes and NFF work together to move the logs and deliver them to the Washoe wood yard.
“It becomes a win-win-win,” Lonergan said.
Coming full circle
Cruz said there is now more interest in Native American traditions and practices among the current generation, which he believes, in part, has ignited interest in continuing to use wood. The Washoe tribe has a deeply intertwined relationship with fire, considering it an essential part of their lives, using it for warmth, cooking and land management. Fire meant home, where there was always something cooking on an open flame like beans or tea, and was used to cultivate their lands.
He points to his sons, now 35 and 26, who have embraced their Native American heritage even more strongly than their father. His youngest is a head fireman in the Native American church ceremonies.
Washoe Elder Violet Pete, 69, told CBS News the crackle of burning wood has been the soundtrack to her life. In her childhood, the wood stove wasn’t just a source of heat — it was the heart of their home. Her mother cooked everything on it: fried potatoes, pan bread, and whatever meat was available, often deer or rabbit stored in their outdoor “cool box.”
Pete said the wood program connects her to her past and represents more than just practical assistance — it’s family taking care of family, a core value in their community.
“If I didn’t have that wood, I’d still be having to go find someone to get me wood or have to go buy wood just to stay warm because that’s my main source of staying warm,” she said.
Elder Eileen Mazy, who used to run a family woodcutting company, is particularly grateful for the program.
When her husband’s back surgery last year prevented them from cutting wood, the tribe’s elder wood program became a lifeline. “I was never so thankful,” she said the program helped them “survive, live and stay warm.”