Latest Living with fire Podcast Episodes

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THE BEAVER EPISODE (finally!) with Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Sophie Gilbert

Life with Fire - April 03, 2024 16:57 - 51 minutes
The 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 ...

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Experiences of Wildfire in Montana, with Young Indigenous Storytellers and the Montana Media Lab

Life with Fire - March 15, 2024 16:00 - 29 minutes
Today'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 sha...

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The Changing Fire Environment and Shifting Baseline Syndrome with "Fire Weather" Author John Vaillant

Life with Fire - February 06, 2024 16:12 - 55 minutes
In 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...

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Fire Technology, Emergency Management and Building Resilience at Scale With Dr. Jessica McCarty

Life with Fire - January 18, 2024 19:23 - 46 minutes
In 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...

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Rapid Fire Episode with Mystery Ranch Backbone Scholarship Winner Riston Bullock

Life with Fire - December 29, 2023 15:29 - 21 minutes
In 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 ...

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Rapid Fire Episode with Mystery Ranch Backbone Scholarship Winner Junior Lazaro

Life with Fire - December 11, 2023 21:16 - 17 minutes
Life 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 Serie...

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Fire For the People With the Nature Conservancy's Marek Smith

Life with Fire - November 30, 2023 17:07 - 32 minutes
Well 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 Networ...

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The Wildfire Commission Report with Kelly Martin

Life with Fire - October 13, 2023 16:59 - 25 minutes
The 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...

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Humble Fire and Traditional Ecological Practices with Cultural Fire Scholar, Dr. Melinda Adams

Life with Fire - July 31, 2023 18:42 - 45 minutes
You'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...

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Community-Informed Wildfire Communications, With Isabeau Ottolini

Life with Fire - July 24, 2023 16:24 - 35 minutes
Isabeau 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 ho...

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Expanding Prescribed Fire Capacity in Washington State, with Lucas King

Life with Fire - July 12, 2023 07:00 - 28 minutes
We'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 capac...

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Life after Wildland Firefighting with Luke Mayfield

Life with Fire - May 12, 2023 16:49 - 37 minutes
What 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 thi...

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Forest Resilience Policy at the State Level with Hilary Franz

Life with Fire - May 01, 2023 16:00 - 57 minutes
We'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...

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Fire in the Pine Barrens of the Northeast with Emily Dolhansky

Life with Fire - April 14, 2023 00:07 - 32 minutes
Our 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 si...

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The Psychology of Fire and Innovating without Ego with Dr. Natasha Stavros

Life with Fire - April 04, 2023 21:05 - 45 minutes
As 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 f...

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The Philosophy of Fire with Amanda Rau, Part Two

Life with Fire - March 22, 2023 20:22 - 40 minutes
In 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...

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Making Your Own Spark, with Amanda Rau (Part One)

Life with Fire - March 01, 2023 20:21 - 34 minutes
This 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...

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Prescribed Fire, Managed Fire and Community Engagement in Oregon, with Christopher Adlam

Life with Fire - February 14, 2023 08:00 - 43 minutes
Hello 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 s...

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Community Resilience with Firesmart Canada Program Manager Magda Zachara

Life with Fire - November 29, 2022 20:47 - 17 minutes
In 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 ...

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Utilizing Traditional First Nations Values in Land Management, with Francis Johnson Jr.

Life with Fire - November 08, 2022 18:22 - 19 minutes
You'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 w...

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Paradoxes and Solutions In Wildfire Smoke Exposure, with Sarah Henderson

Life with Fire - November 02, 2022 19:39 - 18 minutes
We'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...

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Tracking The Economic Impacts of Wildfire, with Environmental Economist Jude Bayham

Life with Fire - October 13, 2022 20:53 - 32 minutes
In 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 resear...

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How Do Wildfires Impact Snowpack? With Andrew Schwartz

Life with Fire - September 27, 2022 07:00 - 27 minutes
In 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 im...

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POW Bonus Episode! Living with Fire in Tahoe—with Athlete, New Dad and Climate Advocate Cody Townsend

Life with Fire - September 14, 2022 20:28 - 20 minutes
In 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...

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Building Trails in Burn Areas, with Dillon Osleger

Life with Fire - September 06, 2022 07:00 - 43 minutes
Today 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...

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How Wildfires Are Impacting Outdoor Recreation, with Jamie Ervin

Life with Fire - August 23, 2022 07:00 - 31 minutes
Welcome 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 ou...

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Hotshot Crew to Grad School, with Harrison Raine

Life with Fire - August 11, 2022 07:00 - 47 minutes
Have 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 ...

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Underdiscussed, Poorly Understood: Prescribed Fire Liability Insurance with Daniel Godwin

Life with Fire - June 30, 2022 16:21 - 46 minutes
Listen—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 ...

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Indigenous-Led Fire Stewardship with Amy Christianson

Life with Fire - June 02, 2022 07:00 - 47 minutes
How 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...

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Indigenous-Led Fire Stewardship with Amy Cardinal-Christianson

Life with Fire - June 02, 2022 07:00 - 47 minutes
How 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...

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