Getting Right with Land, People, and Fire at Ya-Ka-Ama
Category: Blog, Community Resilience, good fire, Growing Community with Nature, Partners, Right Relations, Stewardship, Volunteer
By LandPaths Staff
January 20, 2026
Story by Roxy Layden, senior stewardship field specialist and Right Relations committee member at LandPaths
Ya-Ka-Ama, an intertribal nonprofit founded in 1971, has a rich history rooted in resiliency and community. From its early stories of occupation to current day commitment to educational and cultural revitalization, this volunteer-led organization is helping to support education around traditional values and culture for all Indigenous people in Sonoma County.
According to a blog post on the City of Santa Rosa’s Multicultural Roots Project, Ya-Ka-Ama, was reclaimed from the United States government in the 1970s by a group of Native activists, including Joe Holguin, Donald Stra, Frank Pinola, Reginald Pinola, Dave Smith, Delbert Pinola, Robert Lawson, John Trippo, Sydney Parrish and several others. The process to reclaim the land, which had been used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during World War II, included a series of legal proceedings and physical occupation.”
Ya-Ka-Ama’s property, located in Forestville, California totals 127 acres, and most of the land is stewarded primarily by board members including Xavier Jollivette, Treasurer; Rose Hammock, Board Chair; Angelica Smith, Member at Large; and several community members. There are monthly stewardship days on the land, and volunteers are always welcomed to join in the care of Ya-Ka-Ama “our land.”
In 2025, LandPaths twice had the honor to support land stewardship at Ya-Ka-Ama. Our most recent volunteer stewardship day was on December 19, 2025, focused on building and lighting burn piles. Around 60 people showed up to support the day, including faculty and students Sonoma Earth School and from the Wildfire Resiliency Program at Santa Rosa Junior College, and staff from All Hands Ecology’s Fire Forward.
In addition to organizing and coordinating the day, I helped LandPaths to mobilize dozens of volunteers, staff, and interns. Thanks to the large number of participants, we were able to burn three huge piles, consolidating unrecycleable wood that had collected into 20 different piles.
A cold rain poured down for most of the morning and afternoon, and the tasks at hand were muddy and labor-intensive, but that didn’t stop community members, Ya-Ka-Ama board members, and volunteers from tending the land in good spirits.
As I watched everyone seamlessly move together as one, like birds in formation, I reflected on how deeply intuitive taking care of the land is when done in community. It was also a day of reflection on the importance of the cultural and land revitalization work being done at Ya-Ka-Ama and I was happy to be able to support that.
At the end of the day, as we huddled, soaked from the rain, around one of the big burn piles, I also thought about the reciprocal nature of fire. The more fuel you bring to the fire, the more warmth it creates. The fire kept us warm, drying us after our hours of nurturing it with fuel and attention.
In that moment, I had a strong sense of how tending these fires also meant tending to ourselves and the deep connection we all hold to land.
This day would not have been possible without Ya-Ka-Ama and their generous invitation to be guests on the beautiful Pomo Land that has been tended and connected with for thousands of years by its original peoples. I continue to be in awe of the land and resilient and knowledgeable intertribal community that is Ya-Ka-Ama. And I look forward to learning more and supporting all the work that goes into creating such a vibrant and beautiful community.
Learn more how you can support Ya-Ka-Ama: https://ya-ka-ama.org
Watch a video about the day featuring interviews with Ya-Ka-Ama Board Member Angelica Smith and LandPaths’ staffer Roxy Layden.
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