Life with Fire

In our second episode of the Women in Wildfire series, we brought on Banff National Park Fire and Vegetation Management Specialist Jane Park, who on top of being a profound presence in the wildfire and prescribed fire management space is also, quite simply, really frickin cool (and very fun to chat with). Jane is a Korean-Canadian woman and a type one incident commander; she has also played a huge role in building more diversity within the Canada Parks system, and has notable on-the-ground achievements in bringing more progressive fire management to Banff National Park. We broke this conversation up in to two parts, with the first focusing on fire ecology/regimes in and around Banff, as well as some of the prescribed fire initiatives Jane has led in the park (and a whole lot more).Stay tuned for the second half of our conversation with Jane, which will be published later next week. We also want to give a big shout out to our new sponsor, Mystery Ranch Backpacks. To browse their seemingly endless catalog of backpacks for any activity you can think of, check out their website: www.mysteryranch.comTo see Mystery Ranch's new women-specific fire packs (!!), check out https://www.mysteryranch.com/Packs/Fire/New. To donate to Life with Fire, check out our Patreon—patrons who donate at the $15 level and up will recieve a Mystery Ranch swag pack, while those who donate at $20 and up will get a Life with Fire calendar: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

There's a chance you've seen Nez Perce wildland firefighter and model Celilo Miles in a recent advertisement for Victoria's Secret—in it, she wears Nomex pants and holds her hard hat, emblazoned with the Nez Perce Tribe's fire management program logo. After seeing the ad making the rounds in the wildland fire community, we tracked Celilo down to chat about her background as both a wildland firefighter and a model and how her appearance in the VS advertisement came about. She spoke about balancing modeling and fire, and what each vocation has taught her about the other. We also spoke about the dynamic of being a woman in fire, during which she provided some suggestions for other woman who are interested in fire or are just getting started.This episode is the first in our series on women in wildfire, which will run until early May. Celilo in Vogue Magazine: https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/victorias-secret-love-cloud-launch-celilo-miles-interviewLife with Fire Patreon: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepodLife with Fire website: www.lifewithfirepodcast.comLife with Fire email: [email protected]

The Mt. Adams Resource Stewards in Washington State is an excellent example of a hyper-local solution to community fire resilience. Started in 2004 by this week's guest, Jay McLaughlin, the organization now boasts a community forest, a 10-person stewardship crew, community development programs and fire adaptation resources for nearby communities.Jay has a deep pool of experience in engaging rural (often former logging) communities in fire resilience and more progressive land management; in today's episode, we speak about the challenges of an organization like this, but also the myriad ways this work has been immensely rewarding for Jay and others in the community. He also offers some suggestions and bits of advice for others who hope to develop similar organizations in their own communities.More information on the Mt. Adams Resource Stewards: https://mtadamsstewards.org/Deer Humans Podcast Link: https://player.fm/series/deer-humansLife with Fire website: www.lifewithfirepodcast.comLife with Fire Patreon: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepodTime stamps:5:48 — Mt. Adams Resource Stewards background/creation; fuels program development8:56 — Working forest creation and introduction of stewardship crew15:00 — Is this type of organization scalable across other Western communities?17:35 — Earning buy-in from resource-dependent communities; outreach insights in rural communities, hearing out detractors20:14 — Original inspiration for starting the organization22:09 — Funding sources.24:20 — Building connections in resource-dependent areas25:41 — Suggestions for other organizers interested in creating a community forest

In the second half of their conversation, Michael Wara and Amanda briefly dive into the nitty gritty of liability regimes as they relate to both wildland and prescribed fires, how smoke will continue to impact communities across the West and finally, how the current suppression workforce structure is not a practical means of moving into a more fire-adapted future.Of course, a suppression workforce will always be important, but Michael considers the abysmal work-life balance of the current wildland fire suppression structure and how that contributes to low retention of skilled employees. Eventually this brings him to consider how women are pushed out of the suppression/operational fire world by way of wanting a family or children, and how this has long-standing implications for the sustainability of the workforce and its objectives.Life with Fire Patreon: www.patreon.com/lifewithfire Life with Fire Website: www.lifewithfirepodcast.comNotes: 3:15—Wildfire liability/responsibility regimes 8:45—Air quality impacts on communities 12:30—Prescribed fire liabilities, California's "claims fund" 21:55—Sustainability of suppression workforce; retention and having a family; the engrained misogyny of wildland firefighter work-life balance 23:30—Could community fire stewards be the future of sustainable employment in the wildfire/prescribed fire spaces? 26:55—The desperate need to build a bigger, skilled workforce to meet our management objectives

President Biden recently rolled out a plan to treat 50 million acres of land with fire over the next 10 years. The question is—is 50 million acres actually realistic with the system we have in place right now? We spoke with environmental law and policy expert Michael Wara about the logistics of actually putting that much fire on the ground to reduce risk in vulnerable communities, how we may not be in a place to scale it to that level yet, and what we can do to get to the necessary level of fuels reduction and fire resilience. We also talked a bit about Michael's job as the Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford, and what he and his students are doing in the environmental and wildland fire spaces to help fire practitioners and build fire resilience into law and policy. This is our episode one of two with Michael, with the next publishing in two weeks. Timestamps:7:55 — Wildfire risk to utilities.15:30 — Biden's plan to burn 50 million acres in 10 years.21:35 — Limitations of Forest Service resources in achieving those acreage goals.26:00 — Thinking radically about the future of fire policy.

When smokejumper Tim Hart died from injuries sustained during a hard landing in New Mexico in May, his wife Michelle Hart quickly realized that she needed a way to channel her grief. She also realized she was in a unique position to draw attention to the needs of wildland firefighters—she had a personal connection to the issues facing them, and as a lobbyist, she also had the legislative chops to make legitimate change at a congressional level. This all culminated in the creation of the Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act, which addresses firefighter compensation, benefits, access to mental health resources and availability of housing for firefighters, among other provisions. We spoke with Michelle about the bill and the grief that influenced its creation back in November. They've continued garnering support for the bill, though not much as changed with the bill since when we chatted with Michelle. As of January 19, the bill has been referred to the subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry, where it awaits support from the senate.

We covered such a broad range of subjects with guest Phil Higuera in this episode that it was hard to nail down a title. Nonetheless, Phil's expansive research background lended well to a conversation that covered paleoecology, how lake sediment is used to determine events that happened 13,000 years ago, how forests are changing with a warming climate and how we humans can choose to respond to those changes. Our main objective with the conversation was to discuss Phil's research in Western Washington's San Juan Islands (host Amanda's backyard) while getting his Master's degree at the University of Washington; the work he did there is part of a limited pool of research on fire history in Western Washington, and we wanted to see if Phil might have some perspective on the risk of a large, high-severity conflagration in this area, particularly with the 2020 Labor Day Fires as a pertinent reminder of what can happen in these ecosystems. As always, we appreciate you listening and sharing and engaging with Life with Fire. If you'd like to support us financially you can do so in a variety of ways on our website's "Donate" page: www.lifewithfirepod.com/donate.

This episode's guest, Sue Husari, went from pounding dirt as the first woman to work for the Lassen Hotshots in 1976 to an eventual role as the Fire Management Officer for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service, from which she retired in 2012. In between, she saw fundamental changes not only in how fires burn but in how we fight them. She provides some truly invaluable perspective in this episode, which is guest hosted by our friend Zeke Lunder from The Lookout, an online project that aims to contextualize wildfire information through storytelling and digital media. For more information about (or donate to) Zeke's project at the Lookout, check out their website: www.the-lookout.org.To read a little bit about Sue's time on the Lassen Hotshots, check out this story by Life with Fire host Amanda Monthei from summer 2020: https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/first-women-hotshots-wildland-firefighters/To support Life with Fire, check out our Patreon: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

How will the infrastructure bill impact wildland firefighting and our overall fire resilience? We spoke with Riva Duncan—who is the executive secretary of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighter Coalition—about the bill and its implications for the wildland fire workforce. In addition to providing some greater understanding of the bill and its provisions, Riva also answers a few of the most common questions she's been getting about the legislation. More information about the Grassroots Wildland Firefighter Coalition as well as how to help can be found on their website.If you're digging these conversations, you can donate to Life with Fire through our Patreon.

Our first guest-hosted (an in-person) episode is live! In this episode, Zeke Lunder of "The Lookout" cameos as host of Life with Fire, and sits down with fire researchers Yana Valochovic and Eric Knapp at his office in Chico, CA. They spoke about Valochovic and Knapp's research on the Camp Fire, which deeply impacted the town of Paradise, CA three years ago this week. Their research explores how homes are arranged and built, and how these factors can impact their susceptibility to ignition during wildfires. This is an essential conversation on home resilience, defensible space and what factors contribute to home ignitions in wildfires. Call it "Building in The WUI 101," if you will, but you won't want to miss the invaluable insight, tips and lessons learned from Knapp and Valochovic's extensive research and work in the aftermath of the Camp Fire. To hear more from Zeke, check out Life with Fire Episode 14. More of his work with The Lookout can be found here: https://the-lookout.org/The paper authored by Valochovic and Knapp and referenced throughout this episode can be found here: https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s42408-021-00117-0Knapp and Valochovic are both members of the California Fire Science Consortium. More information on this organization can be found here. To support Life with Fire podcast, consider donating to our Patreon, which can be found here: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

In this episode, we explore one of the topics that is most requested by Life with Fire listeners—cultural burning. We spoke with Karuk tribal member Bill Tripp about his early experiences of cultural burning, and how those experiences reflect in his current work as Director of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy for the Karuk Tribe. We spoke at length about California's Senate Bill 332 (which was signed into law by Gavin Newsom just after Bill and I spoke back in September) and how it would benefit cultural burning practices, as well as how the Karuk Tribe is engaging its youth to return to traditional tribal practices like burning. Information about California Senate Bill 332 and what it means for cultural burners can be found here: https://www.siskiyoudaily.com/story/news/2021/09/16/these-two-new-california-bills-help-tribes-complete-prescribed-burn-projects/8363483002/ For those interested in donating to the podcast, the Life with Fire Patreon can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

In this episode we speak with Sasha Berleman, who has a whole lot of irons in the...prescribed fire? Sasha has a doctorate from UC Berkeley, is the founder and director of the Fire Forward Program through Audubon Canyon Ranch, is a founding member of the Bay Area Prescribed Fire Council and much, much more. Oh, and a former hotshot. We've wanted to get Sasha on the show for a while now, and we were excited to talk about her community work and dedication of building up land stewards, regardless of their backgrounds. You can see more about Sasha on her website, https://www.firepoppyconsulting.com/, or by following her on social media (@thefirepoppy).

In this episode, we explore the new Forest Service directive requiring all new fire starts to be suppressed immediately. Fire scientist Matt Hurteau is our guide on this journey, as he discusses the directive itself, as well as the precedent it sets and its widespread criticism. He and dozens of other fire scientists voiced these criticisms in a letter to Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, which can be found here: http://www.hurteaulab.org/.../chief_moore_letter... To follow Life with Fire, check out our Instagram (@lifewithfirepod) or our Twitter (@lwf_pod). To support our Patreon, please visit www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod.

After a bit of a fire-season-chaos break, we're back with an episode on probably our most requested topic—how wildfires impact animals. For this episode, we brought on Kendall Calhoun, who is pursuing a PhD at US Berkeley and does a majority of his research on how shifting fire regimes in California are impacting native wildlife species. Kendall studies how certain species like deer and coyotes have adapted to wildfire and how they continue to adapt to fires that burn more severely and more frequently than historical norms. His field work is done primarily in Northern California, and he has a particular love of/interest in the oak woodland ecosystems in the region. Above that, Kendall has a clear passion for this work which is reflected in his energy while talking about it. Check out our social media channels for nerdy wildfire content as well as insights from fire practitioners, fire organizations and scientists in the wildfire space: Life with Fire Twitter: https://twitter.com/lwf_pod Life with Fire Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifewithfirepod/ To support Life with Fire, check out our Patreon and consider donating if you're able: https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod Thanks as always for listening, sharing, subscribing and reviewing the podcast! We greatly appreciate your support.

Liz Foster and Molly McCabe join us in this episode—the second of our Land Use and Resilience Series—to talk about fire-resilient communities and infrastructure, including the inherent inequities of disaster prevention, preparation, response and recovery. Liz is the former senior manager of Urban Resilience at the Urban Land Institute, which explores the wildland urban interface resilience to disasters like wildfires. Molly McCabe is owner of HaydenTanner, where she works in real estate finance and property development with an eye to sustainability and disaster resilience. This episode is chock full of great insights about hardening our communities to the threat of destructive wildfires, from two women who have been working in and thinking about disaster resilience for decades. This episode is a must-listen if you’re interested in learning more about the dynamic web of issues related to disaster-resilient communities, including wildfire insurance, adapting energy and transportation infrastructure for wildfires and the inequitable impacts of wildfires on vulnerable communities. For more on this topic, the Firebreak Report that is referenced in this episode provides a well of information about community resilience. Check it out here: https://knowledge.uli.org/-/media/files/research-reports/2020/firebreak-final-jan-2021.pdf?rev=b8e2429cc49a41dea506741bb9914bf4&hash=F6E84C4932B984965C9F5192C2557E5F

For the first episode of our mini-series on land use planning for fire resilience, we spoke with Molly Mowery about her background as a land use planner with a specific interest in preparing communities for wildfires, as well as about her work with the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program. Listen in for some perspectives on community wildfire resilience, and stay tuned for the rest of the mini series, which will include interviews with other planners, builders and architects. As always, you can follow us on Twitter at @lwf_pod, or on Instagram at @lifewithfirepod. For those interested in supporting the podcast financially, our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod.

In this episode we spoke with Zeke Lunder, a pyrogeographer with a background in GIS and mapping on wildfires, and more recently with helping out on prescribed burns all over the West. We spoke about how the advancement of mapping and technology for use in fire suppression is misguided—and how those tech solutions would be better used as a way to get more prescribed fire on the ground. Zeke is from Chico, California, so we also spoke about the impacts of the Camp Fire and the North Complex/Bear Fire on his community, and how repetitive large fires re-traumatize communities like his. You can check us out on Twitter at @lwf_pod, or on Instagram at @lifewithfirepod. And as promised in the episode, here is the link for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod. Thanks for all of your continued support, shares, subscribes etc—every little bit of listener support helps us and our goal of educating folks about wildfires!

In this episode, we spoke with wildfire research extraordinaire Crystal Kolden, who is an assistant professor at UC-Merced. Crystal has a breadth of interests and areas of expertise, and is probably one of our favorite follows on "Wildfire" Twitter. We discussed her humanities background and what led her to an interest in wildfire, the wildfire misconceptions that most irk her and how we can better talk about wildfire impacts and wildfire topics in general. For more information on Crystal and her research, check out her Twitter @pyrogeog or her website, www.pyrogeographer.com. Life with Fire Podcast can be found on Twitter at @lifewithfirepod or on Instagram at @lifewithfirepod. To support Life with Fire Podcast, check out our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod.

In this episode we spoke with Will Harling about his work with the Mid-Klamath Watershed Council, as well as his experiences of growing up in Northern California on the banks of the Salmon and Klamath Rivers. Will had some fantastic insights on how prescribed fires are burdened with immense liability, restrictions and permitting, while wildfires are not treated the same—despite that modern wildfires are more severe because of human behaviors like full suppression firefighting and climate change. Will argues that modern wildfires are no longer an act of God, and that things like managing wildfires for prescriptive purposes could be a good step towards meeting forest management objectives. For more information on the Mid-Klamath Watershed Council—which Will is the executive director of—check out their website: http://www.mkwc.org/

In this episode, we speak with anthropologist Dr. Lindsey Raisa Feldman about her research on incarcerated fire crews in Arizona. Lindsey actually worked on the ground with these crews—and despite her assertion that she wasn't a very good firefighter, she did come away with some important insights about the nature of incarcerated firefighting, as well as a few profound experiences of her own. Lindsey's work can be found on her website: https://www.lindseyraisa.com/ Follow Life with Fire! Find us at @lwf_pod on Twitter or @lifewithfirepod on Instagram. And if you enjoy the podcast, we'd be honored if you shared it or left a review for us on Apple Podcasts. Life with Fire is made possible with donations! If you dig the podcast, please consider donating to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

Wildland firefighters are disproportionately affected by depression, anxiety, PTSD, suicide and other mental health struggles. There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest are quite simple: wildland firefighting is a high-stress job that takes firefighters away from their families for months at a time and often doesn't come with appropriate pay or benefits given the sacrifices that these folks make every summer. With that lack of benefits comes a severe lack of mental health resources and care for laid-off firefighters, resulting in something of a mental health epidemic for a seasonal workforce that grows more essential—and more exhausted—by the year. This episode dives into what these struggles look like from the perspective of currently laid-off seasonal firefighters, who each spoke about their individual challenges with mental health and wellness. Firefighters included in this episode: Ben McLane (hotshot), Coleman Wilson (handcrew member), Gabby Casper (rappeller), Eddie Klemencic (hotshot), Kat Sullivan (hotshot) and Livi Hughes (British Columbia Fire Service crewmember). As promised in the episode, here are a few resources for wildland firefighters who are struggling with mental health challenges this off-season:1. Wildland Firefighter Foundation—https://wffoundation.org/resources/reference/. This organization provides emotional and financial support and assistance for wildland firefighters injured on the line, and also facilitates mental health support. The website above is a landing page for a variety of other mental health resources for firefighters.2. Your crew! Call up your crewmembers from last summer and check in on them. It's nice to talk to people who know the business and who understand what you're going through on a more personal level.3. Wildland Firefighter Guardian Institute—https://www.wfgi.org/mental-health-resources. This organization covers mental health resources (including therapy and counseling!) at no cost to wildland firefighters.4. Online therapy—lots of options, but https://www.betterhelp.com/ is a highly recommended (and decently affordable) one.5. For military veterans: You local VA Center (not hospital) can provide mental health treatment. More info here: https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/index.asp?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=search-va&utm_content=help&utm_term=%2Bva%20%2Bmedical%20%2Bcenter&gclid=CjwKCAiAu8SABhAxEiwAsodSZB0WyjZJ0hF_ErGbqzG6rQfqtVCNih-LBcsXe2tGcYTOLTbIWdY2KBoCqs8QAvD_BwE

Mando Perez spent around six years fighting fire while incarcerated as a young man. Upon his release in 2010, he began the arduous transition into a position with a federal firefighting agency, and now works as a senior firefighter for the El Dorado Hotshots. In this episode, he shares his experiences of working on an inmate fire crew and details how he transitioned to a full-time fire career after his release. He also talks about why he continues to pursue fire as a career, what he loves about the job, and offers some suggestions for people who may be on a path similar to his. Follow the link below to watch the Vice News short documentary on the El Dorado Hotshots (which I mentioned in this episode): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6T9R-cjXc0&t=312s To learn more about California Assembly Bill 2147—which allows formerly incarcerated firefighters to have their records expunged in order to gain employment more easily after their release—check out this piece in Politico from September: https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/09/11/california-clears-way-for-inmate-firefighters-to-enter-profession-upon-release-9424131. Finally, here are a few resources for anyone interested in getting a job as a wildland firefighter, regardless of their background: The Wildland Fire Apprenticeship Program: https://www.nafri.gov/wfap/ The Rio Hondo Fire Academy (which Mando attended and mentions in this episode): https://www.riohondofire.com/wildland-fire-academy The California Conservation Corps—this is a particularly good choice for college-aged people who have an interest in fire, trail work or other federal natural resource jobs: https://ccc.ca.gov/ Youth Conservation Corps—this program is for high schoolers who have an interest in natural resources work in general: https://www.fs.usda.gov/working-with-us/opportunities-for-young-people/youth-conservation-corps-opportunities

The practice of cultural burning hinges on one critical truth: healthy land means healthy people. Margo Robbins, who is a Yurok tribal member, basket weaver and the executive director of the Cultural Fire Management Council, explains the importance of cultural burning on Yurok tribal lands—located in Northern California— as well as why she has a vested interest in reintegrating cultural burns on her ancestral lands. Listen in to learn more about indigenous burning, the ecological and cultural benefits of fire and how cultural burning has helped renew the art and practice of basket weaving for Margo and other members of the Yurok Tribe.

In this episode, we talk to Annie Schmidt, who works for the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network. Through her position at the Fire Adapted network, Annie has committed herself to helping communities build their fire-resiliency and, quite literally, learn to better live with fire. Annie offers some great perspective on how and why fire prevention work should be prioritized just as much as fire suppression, while also providing a few suggestions for other people who want to improve fire resiliency in their communities. One of the most interesting parts of Annie’s work is her commitment to bringing different voices to the table and empowering people with a variety of backgrounds to take greater authority over their land. You can listen, subscribe or review Living With Fire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Podcasts.

On this episode, guest Nick Nauslar—a fire meteorologist at the National Interagency Fire Center—explains what contributed to the so-called "Labor Day Firestorm," that devastated the Northwest and Northern California on the week of September 6. Nick discussed all the factors that made this conflagration so historic, and also discussed how climate change—which took a lot of the blame in national media—played only a small part in what became one of the worst weeks of fire in US history.

In this episode, we talk with renowned author John Maclean about the decades he's spent investigating and writing about fatality wildfires in the West, as well as his latest project, a book about hotshot history and the Yarnell Hill Fire. We also touched on the influence his father—Norman Maclean, the preeminent voice of wildfire fatalities with his book Young Men and Fire—had on his early writing career, and even got a short cameo from the squirrel who lives in John's attic/workspace.

If you’ve ever worked in fire, there’s a good chance a few of Stephen Pyne’s fire books were laying around the station or office where you worked. Pyne is without a doubt the foremost expert of fire history in the US—in this episode we spoke about his concept of a “pyrocene,” about the evolution of fire management in the US since the Big Burns of 1910, and about how we can prepare to live in landscapes where fires—not humans—set the terms.

Lenya Quinn-Davidson has committed her career to changing the ways we think about prescribed fire. She also started the Women in Prescribed Fire Training Exchange program, or WTREX, which empowers women and people of color to gain experience as firefighters, mentors and leaders in fire management through the use of prescribed fire. We spoke about the importance of diversity in the fire world, and about how we can do better in mentoring, empowering and retaining women and BIPOC in positions in wildland fire.

Jeremy Bailey is a prescribed fire manager with the Nature Conservancy, and the brains behind the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange or TREX. On this episode, we talk about his inspiration for starting the TREX program, about how firefighters, homeowners, Indigenous peoples and communities have used prescribed fire to manage the landscapes around them, and about how prescribed fire is a critical tool for adapting ourselves to wildfire.