WIDE RUINS, Ariz. — Driving up a dirt road in this part of Navajo Nation, all that can be seen for miles is sagebrush until reaching Harry Joe Ashley’s house.
The Navajo elder lives in a hogan, a traditional home, built for him by neighbors in Wide Ruins, a remote town of 175 people in northeastern Arizona, about 250 miles from Phoenix. The dwelling has no electricity, running water or heat.
He can get by without the water and power, but he uses his handmade wood stove every day to heat his home on the Navajo reservation, where temperatures can reach 15 degrees F in the winter, and his water, which he receives from neighbors and a veterans nonprofit group or has shipped in and stores on his property.
He doesn’t have a way to collect wood himself, and a truck bed of firewood would cost him $300 to be delivered by others on the reservation.
“I only get a small pension from the military,” said the twice-enlisted Marine Corps veteran. “That’s just not enough.”
It’s a situation the Navajo, Hopi and other tribes in the Four Corners region face every winter. Many drive hours to the nearest forests for permits to cut down wood for themselves and to sell at reduced prices to people who cannot afford commercial deliveries or are unable to leave the reservation.
The pandemic and the 2019 closure of a coal-powered plant on the Navajo reservation that generated electricity for the Navajo and Hopi nations created a “home-heating crisis,” said Sasha Stortz, Southwest region director of the National Forest Foundation, a nonprofit group that works to preserve U.S. wildlands.
The growing demand for firewood sent expenses soaring for tribal members and prompted Stortz in 2020 to start Wood for Life, a program that takes salvaged wood from fire prevention efforts in national forests and gives it to Native communities that do not have local sources of firewood.
“We try to bring everybody together and kind of help make matches between the needs that are out there and the wood supplies that forests have,” Stortz said. “When we have too much wood, and our neighbors are looking for firewood, it’s just a perfect connection.”
The program now serves five tribes in four states — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and New Mexico — and handed out 10,000 cords of wood in 2023.
“It’s really about using all the different parts of the tree and connecting them to, you know, the way we live and the way folks rely on the forest,” Stortz said.
The undertaking also allowed her to provide jobs to 19 people who live on the Navajo reservation, where the unemployment rate is above 45%, according to the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture.
“So I wanted to also just inject this money back into the community by supporting jobs,” she said.
Miranda Mullett, who grew up in Wide Ruins in a hogan built by her grandfather, initially embarked on her own effort to provide firewood to tribal members after visiting her ancestral home in December and learning of their plight.
“I find that Navajo people are very resilient so they’re not just going to sit around and be like, ‘Oh, I’m cold,’” Mullett said. “Our elders will go out and try to take care of themselves, and sometimes the result is not what we want.”
She raised money through her botanics line of skin care products, making a TikTok video that went viral and adding a link on her website where customers could donate. Her goal was to raise enough money to provide firewood for 20 families, but she raised enough for 41. She soon learned of Wood for Life, which helped her find some of the wood she gave away.
“Elders in our community are the keepers of our traditions and our knowledge. So it’s just important for us to get back to make them comfortable,” she said.
Ashley, who in December received a supply of firewood salvaged from the nearby Coconino Forest by Wood for Life, said he appreciated the gift.
“That’s going to help for hopefully, hopefully, two months,” he said with a laugh. ”This weather is just unpredictable.”