Tribes object to fighting fire in sacred places Indian tribes from the Klamath River canyon are worried that the U.S. Forest Service is violating some of their sacred lands by fighting a remote wilderness wildfire rather than letting it burn naturally. The area is home to many prayer seats or vision quest sites shared by three tribes, where tribal members have fasted, prayed and sought spiritual guidance for thousands of years. The area is also used to gather grasses for baskets and Port Orford cedar for ceremonial buildings, such as sweat lodges. "Talking with Forest Service firefighters, I have been saying this is the Sistine Chapel, the Mount Sinai, the Vatican," for the Yurok, Karuk and Tolowa tribes, Chris Peters, the Yurok tribe's liaison with the Forest Service, said from Arcata, Calif. But though the fires are far from any homes, leaving them to burn without a strong perimeter around them is not an option, given the nearby timber resources and expectations that the fire conditions will get worse, he said. He added that because the fires are in a wilderness area, fire lines are built by hand, not with bulldozers....