In order to manage California wilderness areas to preserve their natural and untrammeled character, as required by the Wilderness Act, federal land management agencies should adopt interpretations of the Act that allow prescribed burning and Indigenous cultural burning in areas where it existed pre-colonialism. Interpreting the Act this way will likely lead to lawsuits, but land management agencies should be able to defend against these even in a post-Chevron legal landscape because of California’s unique history, the history of the Wilderness Act, and recognition of the importance of prescribed burns in forest management in California before and after the Act was passed.