Life with Fire
77 episodes - English - Latest episode: 23 days ago -What are the benefits of prescribed burning? Why have wildfires gotten so severe lately? How can I help protect my home and community?
Life With Fire podcast aims to answer these questions (and many others) while deepening our understanding of the critical role fire plays in America’s forests, lands and communities.
Hosted by writer and former wildland firefighter Amanda Monthei, Life with Fire features interviews with everyone from scientists to fire management experts to Indigenous practitioners and folks doing the work on the ground. Through these interviews, Amanda hopes to explore our relationship with fire, as well as ways we can better coexist with it in the future.
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Episodes
THE BEAVER EPISODE (finally!) with Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Sophie Gilbert
April 03, 2024 16:57 - 51 minutes - 47 MBThe long-awaited beaver episode! In this episode, we learn about how beavers are not only champions of wildfire resilience but are also sleeper endurance athletes (climbing mountains to find new watersheds), dedicated anti-capitalists (not giving a **** about the regulatory or material concerns of humans), expert engineers (casually restoring entire watersheds) and pretty handy companions to have in our pursuit of restoring habitat and landscape resilience across the West (and beyond). Dr. ...
Experiences of Wildfire in Montana, with Young Indigenous Storytellers and the Montana Media Lab
March 15, 2024 16:00 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBToday's episode is a special one. We collaborated with the Montana Media Lab—a program of the University of Montana's School of Journalism—to help support their winter "Youth Voices" workshop, which empowers young rural and Indigenous storytellers to learn more about audio storytelling while sharing stories from their communities. This episode features five stories from high school students in Browning and Florence, Montana, all of which are centered around wildfire's presence in their commu...
The Changing Fire Environment and Shifting Baseline Syndrome with "Fire Weather" Author John Vaillant
February 06, 2024 16:12 - 55 minutes - 50.4 MBIn this episode, we had a chance to sit down with author John Vaillant, who recently published a new book about the 2016 Fort McMurray fires in Northern Alberta. The book, Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World, is an in-depth exploration of the fires, which released in June 2023. We not only spoke about his reporting process in the aftermath of a catastrophic wildfire, but we also touched on some of the book's major themes and how these were, in many cases, paralleled by the 2023 fi...
Fire Technology, Emergency Management and Building Resilience at Scale With Dr. Jessica McCarty
January 18, 2024 19:23 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBIn this episode, we spoke with Dr. Jessica McCarty—the branch chief for the Biospheric Sciences branch at NASA's Ames Research Center—about her career, her work on fire in boreal and arctic ecosystems (within the context of the Canadian wildfires last summer), her perspectives on fire technology (spoiler: she's a big fan of predictive modeling) and so many other topics that we couldn't possibly list them all here. Here's her NASA bio, which explains her background better than we ever possi...
Rapid Fire Episode with Mystery Ranch Backbone Scholarship Winner Riston Bullock
December 29, 2023 15:29 - 21 minutes - 19.4 MBIn our second Backbone Scholarship episode—sponsored by Mystery Ranch and the American Wildfire Experience—we chatted with Nez Perce wildland firefighter Riston Bullock, who spoke about his experiences working in fire over the last decade, about the challenges that have come up as he has gotten older and become a father, as well as the challenges of the Nez Perce Reservation to have more authority over their own fire management. Riston also spoke about his experience of seeing a fatality on ...
Rapid Fire Episode with Mystery Ranch Backbone Scholarship Winner Junior Lazaro
December 11, 2023 21:16 - 17 minutes - 16 MBLife with Fire Podcast, Mystery Ranch Backpacks and the American Wildfire Experience (AWE) have joined forces to bring you this episode with Junior Lazaro—a wildland firefighter who received a Backbone Scholarship from AWE to share his experiences of fire through the Mystery Ranch Backbone Series and Life with Fire Podcast. Junior is a young wildland firefighter who shared his experiences of working in fire in his third season on a BLM handcrew out of eastern Oregon. In this episode, he sp...
Fire For the People With the Nature Conservancy's Marek Smith
November 30, 2023 17:07 - 32 minutes - 29.9 MBWell we finally got a chance to speak with Marek Smith, who is the North American Fire Director for the Nature Conservancy and the co-director of the Fire Networks, which houses the Fire Adapted Learning Network, the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX), The Indigenous Peoples Burning Network and the Fire Learning Networks. Before I get too far into this intro, I do want to note that the Fire Network has a new website that is a veritable clearinghouse of good fire resources, knowledge an...
The Wildfire Commission Report with Kelly Martin
October 13, 2023 16:59 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBThe Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission, established in 2022 at the behest of Congress following the 2021 Infrastructure Act, recently released a substantial report highlighting recommendations that will shape the future of wildfire policy and action in the US. Fifty commission members were charged with creating the recommendations, one of which was Kelly Martin—who is a founding member of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighter organization and a longtime wildland firefighter. We had ...
Humble Fire and Traditional Ecological Practices with Cultural Fire Scholar, Dr. Melinda Adams
July 31, 2023 18:42 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBYou've probably heard of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) but how about Traditional Ecological *Practices*? In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Melinda Adams of the N’dee San Carlos Apache Tribe about translating Indigenous knowledge into Indigenous-led action—which means giving Indigenous practitioners the "space, opportunity and action" to see their knowledge systems play out on the landscape. We spoke about a whole lot more than that, though; we heard about Dr. Adams' PhD work at UC...
Community-Informed Wildfire Communications, With Isabeau Ottolini
July 24, 2023 16:24 - 35 minutes - 32.3 MBIsabeau Ottolini is one of the foremost experts on imbuing risk communications with values that are informed by communities themselves. As a PhD candidate on community-based communications at the Open University of Catalonia in Spain, Isabeau spends a significant amount of time thinking about how we can best reach those most at risk of wildfire's impacts, while also allowing those folks to inform how we approach them on this subject. The ways we talk about wildfire are often highly localize...
Expanding Prescribed Fire Capacity in Washington State, with Lucas King
July 12, 2023 07:00 - 28 minutes - 26.3 MBWe're big fans of the Mt. Adams Resource Stewards here at Life with Fire. You may recall our episode with the organization's Executive Director back in 2022 (episode 28), but we're back today with an episode with MARS' Stewardship Crew Lead, Lucas King, who shared his thoughts on expanding capacity for more burning and fuels reduction from the ground up in Washington State. Lucas and Amanda spoke about expanding capacity for (and acceptance of) local burning in MARS' backyard—primarily thr...
Life after Wildland Firefighting with Luke Mayfield
May 12, 2023 16:49 - 37 minutes - 34.6 MBWhat can life after wildland firefighting look like? With the issues facing wildland firefighters these days (including but not limited to: abysmal pay, nonexistent benefits and perpetually being let down by elected officials who suggest they might actually do something about it etc) many in this essential but overworked workforce are likely considering that question themselves. After asking himself that question for years, today's guest Luke Mayfield finally got his answer in 2019, when he...
Forest Resilience Policy at the State Level with Hilary Franz
May 01, 2023 16:00 - 57 minutes - 52.9 MBWe'll be honest—we've been hoping to talk to Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz since this podcast's inception. Franz is responsible for the management of over six millions acres of public lands and the state's wildland firefighting workforce, so we were pretty excited to finally have the opportunity to have a conversation with her a few weeks ago. Our conversation ran the gamut from the forest resilience measures she's taken while in office, to the All Hands All La...
Fire in the Pine Barrens of the Northeast with Emily Dolhansky
April 14, 2023 00:07 - 32 minutes - 29.5 MBOur 50th episode! In today's episode, we spoke to professional forester Emily Dolhansky about the fire-adapted ecosystems of her home state of New Jersey. Perhaps you've seen some footage of the Jimmy's Waterhole Fire (pretty good fire name tbh) in southern New Jersey—as of this writing, it's sitting at nearly 4,000 acres and 75% containment after exhibiting fire behavior that would be extreme by almost any geographic area's standards. Emily filled us in on the fire ecology and history of t...
The Psychology of Fire and Innovating without Ego with Dr. Natasha Stavros
April 04, 2023 21:05 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBAs indicated by the title of this episode, we covered some SERIOUS ground in our conversation with Dr. Natasha Stavros, Director of the Earth Lab at CU Boulder. Natasha's background in the academic realm combined with personal experiences with wildfire (being evacuated from one of California's first megafires back in the early 2000s, and most recently seeing the impacts of the Marshall Fire on the Boulder community) gives her a strong understanding of fire from both the academic and the comm...
The Philosophy of Fire with Amanda Rau, Part Two
March 22, 2023 20:22 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBIn our second episode with Oregon Prescribed Fire Council found Amanda Rau, we discuss how she has connected the dots between her philosophy degree and her fire career, what other agencies and jobs she is interested in pursuing, the Oregon Certified Burn Manager Course and her vision for getting fire in the hands of more people in Oregon and beyond. Learn more about the Oregon Prescribed Fire Council: https://www.oregonrxfire.org/ This episode is sponsored by Mystery Ranch Backpacks. Whet...
Making Your Own Spark, with Amanda Rau (Part One)
March 01, 2023 20:21 - 34 minutes - 31.5 MBThis week's guest Amanda Rau has worked for nearly every fire-adjacent agency or organization that exists in the state of Oregon. From the Forest Service to a contract crew to the Nature Conservancy and a current role with the Oregon Department of Lands, Amanda has had a hand in just about every side of the Oregon fire world that you can get. Naturally, that means she has a lot of fantastic perspective on what she has gleaned from each job, as well as the lessons she's brought from the supp...
Prescribed Fire, Managed Fire and Community Engagement in Oregon, with Christopher Adlam
February 14, 2023 08:00 - 43 minutes - 39.8 MBHello again! After a hefty mid-winter break, Life with Fire is back with our first episode of 2023. This episode was recorded from the road last fall, with guest Christopher Adlam. Chris is the regional fire specialist for the Southwest Oregon region of Oregon State's Fire Extension, and had some great insights on community and individual fire resilience, OSU's fire extension programming and, finally, how we can better communicate with communities about both prescribed and managed fire. We...
Community Resilience with Firesmart Canada Program Manager Magda Zachara
November 29, 2022 20:47 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBIn our third and final episode from the International Association of Wildland Fire conference in Edmonton, Alberta, we spoke with FireSmart program manager Magda Zachara about Firesmart's objective to build scalable wildfire prevention and mitigation programming across Canada. Magda spoke about Firesmart's programming and the ways they've build more engagement with communities that want to improve fire resilience and home hardening. To learn more about Firesmart Canada, check out their web...
Utilizing Traditional First Nations Values in Land Management, with Francis Johnson Jr.
November 08, 2022 18:22 - 19 minutes - 17.8 MBYou've probably heard of the Land Back movement, but an essential ingredient of Land Back initiatives will also be Fire Back—that is, returning land stewardship and burning authority to First Nations and Indigenous communities across North America and the world. We've spoken to a few guests who have highlighted the importance of Indigenous authority in land management in the past, but today we've got a whole episode on how that authority can actually be achieved at the community level and...
Paradoxes and Solutions In Wildfire Smoke Exposure, with Sarah Henderson
November 02, 2022 19:39 - 18 minutes - 17.1 MBWe're in Canada at the International Association of Wildland Fire Conference this week, and will be pulling some folks aside for some quick conversations about the conference themes and the research being presented and discussed. Our first "rapid fire" episode guest is Sarah Henderson, who works for the BC Centre for Disease Control as the scientific director of Environmental Health Services. Sarah has some fascinating insights into our perceptions of wildfire smoke, some common paradoxes th...
Tracking The Economic Impacts of Wildfire, with Environmental Economist Jude Bayham
October 13, 2022 20:53 - 32 minutes - 30 MBIn our final episode sponsored by Protect Our Winters, we explored the economics of wildfire (both it's suppression and it's community and recreational impacts) with Jude Bayham, an environmental and resource economist at Colorado State University. Jude told us about some of his upcoming research, which he's hoping will utilize Strava data to determine where people continue to recreate in the aftermath of wildfires, in addition to lots of other cool stuff he has in the works. We also explor...
How Do Wildfires Impact Snowpack? With Andrew Schwartz
September 27, 2022 07:00 - 27 minutes - 24.8 MBIn the fourth episode of our series sponsored by Protect our Winters, we spoke with self-proclaimed snow nerd Andrew Schwartz about his work as the lead scientist at the the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, where he explores all sorts of snowpack-related science but also how wildfires are impacting that snowpack. From less canopy to protect the snow from the sun to ash on the snow attracting more solar energy, Andrew talks us through all the ways that our snowpack and glaciers will conti...
POW Bonus Episode! Living with Fire in Tahoe—with Athlete, New Dad and Climate Advocate Cody Townsend
September 14, 2022 20:28 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBIn a special bonus episode of our recreation X wildfire series sponsored by Protect Our Winters, we spoke with professional skier Cody Townsend about what it's like to live in North Lake Tahoe as the threat of wildfire (or smoke) in that area seems to increase exponentially every fire season, as well as what kind of advocacy work he suggests for listeners who don't know where to get started in the climate or advocacy space. And we know what you might be thinking right now: A professional s...
Building Trails in Burn Areas, with Dillon Osleger
September 06, 2022 07:00 - 43 minutes - 39.7 MBToday we're talking trails! What do trails have to do with wildfire, you ask? Well, ask any trail builder that question and they'll tell you that they're kind of a pain to rebuild (and cut out) after wildfires. Today's guest Dillon Osleger is a trail builder, an environmental advocate, scientist and Executive Director of the Sage Trail Alliance, and also works with Protect Our Winters as both a creative and an athlete. He's done a fair bit of both trail building and trail rehab in the afterm...
How Wildfires Are Impacting Outdoor Recreation, with Jamie Ervin
August 23, 2022 07:00 - 31 minutes - 28.4 MBWelcome to the first episode of our four-part series discussing the impacts of wildfire on recreation, sponsored by Protect Our Winters! For this episode, Jamie Ervin of the Outdoor Alliance walked us through the myriad ways that wildfires create barriers to recreation access and enjoying the outdoors. From air quality impacts to forest closures, Jamie talks about what recreationists can continue to expect from worsening wildfire seasons, while also talking about why it's important to rememb...
Hotshot Crew to Grad School, with Harrison Raine
August 11, 2022 07:00 - 47 minutes - 43 MBHave you seen that C̶o̶l̶l̶e̶g̶e̶ Hotshot shirt from Hotshot Brewery (you can look at it here if you're unfamiliar)? This episode's guest Harrison Raine walks us through doing both of those things at once—and shares why he thinks more firefighters should pursue fire-adjacent degrees and careers that can make use of that invaluable, on-the-ground fire experience. During his undergrad, Harrison scored a fellowship that allowed him to travel the world to explore fire management practices in p...
Underdiscussed, Poorly Understood: Prescribed Fire Liability Insurance with Daniel Godwin
June 30, 2022 16:21 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MBListen—we know that prescribed fire liability insurance is a big, scary topic. But we encourage you to check out this episode, because while liability insurance is one of the bigger challenges in getting more "good fire" on the ground, it's also one of the least understood and more infrequently talked about challenges, likely because it is such a complex topic. With that in mind, learning more about those challenges and how people are working to solve them is critical to having a full unders...
Indigenous-Led Fire Stewardship with Amy Christianson
June 02, 2022 07:00 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MBHow can First Nation and Indigenous communities regain power over their long-honed land stewardship and cultural burning practices? How can these practices be done without the influence of Westernized practices, which includes prescribed burning? Today's guest Amy Cardinal Christianson, a Métis woman and Fire Social Scientist for the Canadian Forest Service, addressed these questions (and so, so many others) for us in today's episode. On top of advocating for greater authority for First Nat...
Indigenous-Led Fire Stewardship with Amy Cardinal-Christianson
June 02, 2022 07:00 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MBHow can First Nation and Indigenous communities regain power over their long-honed land stewardship and cultural burning practices? How can these practices be done without the influence of Westernized practices, which includes prescribed burning? Today's guest Amy Cardinal Christianson, a Métis woman and Fire Social Scientist for the Canadian Forest Service, addressed these questions (and so, so many others) for us in today's episode. On top of advocating for greater authority for First Nat...
How Can Fire Culture Become More Inclusive? with Triss Seemiller
May 12, 2022 07:00 - 43 minutes - 39.5 MBTriss Seemiller is a trans woman who started gender-affirming hormone therapy when she was on a shot crew in California. She transitioned soon after she left the crew. She has occasionally felt uneasy about sharing her identity with coworkers since transitioning, and in this episodes walks us through her breadth of experiences on different crews to talk about situations where she felt most empowered and comfortable being herself, as well as the situations that made her question her desire to...
A Life Of Fire as a Trans Woman, with Bobbie Scopa
April 13, 2022 07:00 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MBBobbie Scopa has had quite a long and storied fire career—she recently retired after 45 years working in both wildland and municipal fire, during which she worked her way into the Chief position and into numerous leadership positions over her career with the Forest Service. Notably, she was present on the Dude Fire in 1990, where six firefighters were tragically killed, and even served at Ground Zero after 9/11. But Bobbie's story doesn't start and end with firefighting. She's also a trans ...
Women in Wildfire Episode 3: Diversity in Fire with Jane Park (Part Two)
March 22, 2022 19:02 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBIn the second half of our conversation with Jane Park, we spoke about some of the diversity initiatives that Jane has spearheaded within Banff National Park and Parks Canada as a whole. We also spoke about Jane's experiences of working in fire as a Korean-Canadian woman and type 1 incident commander, and why she thinks it's imperative to bring more people of color and women into the wildfire and prescribed fire spaces. Be sure to check out our first episode with Jane, which covers prescribed...
Diversity in Fire with Jane Park (Part Two)
March 22, 2022 19:02 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBIn the second half of our conversation with Jane Park, we spoke about some of the diversity initiatives that Jane has spearheaded within Banff National Park and Parks Canada as a whole. We also spoke about Jane's experiences of working in fire as a Korean-Canadian woman and type 1 incident commander, and why she thinks it's imperative to bring more people of color and women into the wildfire and prescribed fire spaces. Be sure to check out our first episode with Jane, which covers prescribed...
Women in Wildfire Episode 2: Prescribed Fire Management in Banff National Park with Jane Park
March 14, 2022 19:09 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBIn 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 a...
Prescribed Fire Management in Banff National Park with Jane Park
March 14, 2022 19:09 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBIn 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 a...
From Fashion Week to the Fireline with Celilo Miles
March 08, 2022 22:13 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBThere'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 bala...
Women in Wildfire Episode 1: From Fashion Week to the Fireline with Celilo Miles
March 08, 2022 22:13 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBThere'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 bala...
Creating Connections Through Community Forests
March 01, 2022 16:45 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBThe 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 ...
Creating Connections Through Community Forests with Jay McLaughlin
March 01, 2022 16:45 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBThe 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 ...
Michael Wara Part 2: Sustainability of the Suppression Workforce + Lots More
February 17, 2022 19:29 - 29 minutes - 26.9 MBIn 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 w...
Michael Wara Part 2: Sustainability of the Suppression Workforce, Among Other Things
February 17, 2022 19:29 - 29 minutes - 26.9 MBIn 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 w...
The Reality of Burning 50 Million Acres in 10 Years with Michael Wara
February 01, 2022 17:51 - 32 minutes - 29.5 MBPresident 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 ...
The Tim Hart Act and Channeling Grief with Michelle Hart
January 19, 2022 19:31 - 21 minutes - 20 MBWhen 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 H...
Climate Change Impacts on High Severity, Low Frequency Fire Regimes with Phil Higuera
January 07, 2022 08:00 - 57 minutes - 52.3 MBWe 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 W...
Four Decades of Fire, with Sue Husari (and Guest Host Zeke Lunder)
November 30, 2021 17:03 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MBThis 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 proje...
What The Infrastructure Bill Means for Wildland Firefighters with Riva Duncan
November 16, 2021 08:00 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBHow 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 Wildlan...
Homes as Fuel with Zeke Lunder, Yana Valochovic and Eric Knapp
November 15, 2021 08:00 - 38 minutes - 35 MBOur 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 d...
All Things Cultural Burning with Karuk Tribal Member Bill Tripp
November 08, 2021 21:05 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MBIn 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 ...
Building a Community of Land Stewards, With Sasha Berleman
September 03, 2021 18:42 - 26 minutes - 23.8 MBIn 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, regardle...