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Today’s newsletter is a special dispatch from the San Francisco bureau chief, Thomas Fuller, who spent time covering the fires in Australia.

Bill Tripp learned to burn when he was 4 years old.

In an Indian community along a bend in the Salmon River in the northwest corner of California, Mr. Tripp absorbed traditional burning techniques from his great-grandmother, who was born in the late 1800s and was a repository of knowledge on where and when to burn. He learned the difference between good fire and bad fire.

“We’ve being doing it for millennia,” Mr. Tripp said.

In listening to Mr. Tripp, a member of the Karuk tribe, I was struck by the parallels with Aboriginal burning traditions in northern Australia, which I wrote about during a two-week trip covering the fires.

Native burning techniques have come into the spotlight as many parts of the world grapple with how to reduce destructive, out-of-control wildfires.