Living with Fire: Agricultural Burning by Quechua Farmers in the Peruvian Andes

Abstract

Fire is an essential tool enabling tropical subsistence agriculture, but can result in escaped fires when not adequately controlled. We employed agricultural calendars, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with over 60 farmers over four months of fieldwork to evaluate how agricultural burning is currently conducted in the Peruvian Andes. We found that Quechua farmers use fire for clearing agricultural residue, controlling weeds and shrubs, and preparing new or fallow parcels, with most burns set during the dry season. Quechua farmers employ control burning techniques that reflect an understanding of how fire behavior is influenced by fuel, topography, and weather conditions, a knowledge that aligns closely with Western use of prescribed and controlled burns. We also observed a high incidence of escaped fires, although most were controlled within an hour, and very few required community-wide intervention to extinguish. Our findings have significant policy implications for the safe and effective use of fire in rural agricultural landscapes. Rather than solely impose fire suppression, governments could facilitate access to modern wildfire risk indices and provide technical assistance for controlled burns, compatible with farmers’ existing knowledge of factors influencing fire behavior. These recommendations are part of a worldwide call for collaborative fire management solutions that are reasonable and applicable in diverse settings in the Global South.