Life with Fire

Welcome to the first part of our six-episode series all about the Southwest, sponsored by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and the Arizona Wildfire Initiative!

In this episode, which is serving as an introduction to the series, we spoke with Mary Stuever, who is the Cimarron District Forester for New Mexico Forestry Division. Mary has a breadth of experience across disciplines in the fire world, which is well-reflected in our conversation. She's worked in suppression, prevention, fire ecology, community education, post-fire support and public information, among other roles in her long career in fire. As such, we touched on everything from her background in suppression (and subsequent health problems from smoke exposure) to her time providing post-fire community support for the folks in Mora, NM, which was devastated by the 2022 Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire. Mora was not only impacted by the fire itself, but also by subsequent flooding and debris flows that destroyed wells, choked out acequias (critical agricultural waterways) and destroyed untold homes, properties and livelihoods. 

Mary reflected on the situation she found herself in in such a devastating post-fire environment, including what was needed and opportunities she saw for helping other communities prepare for similar situations. She also gave us a quick Southwest Fire Ecology 101 lesson, and was all around a great guest to chat about the huge diversity of wildfire issues facing the Southwest right now. Most of the topics we spoke to will be elaborated on in greater detail in upcoming episodes, so we hope you'll stick around and listen in as we release more episodes of this series over the next six weeks. 

For more information on post-fire impacts in Mora, check out some of the fantastic reporting  Patrick Lohmann of Source NM did both during and after the fire.

For more information about our sponsor for this series, the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, check out their website, which is chock-full of resources related to Southwest fire ecology, research, management and communications. 

You can learn more about the Arizona Wildfire Initiative and their great work in community outreach, science communications and fire education on their website. 

Timestamps: 

08:55 - Role Of Fire In The Landscape

10:10 - Health Issues in Wildland Firefighting

12:13 - Basing Operational Decisions On Smoke Exposure

14:18 - Fire Ecology of the Southwest 101

23:22 - Intersecting Cultures And Fire Management in the Southwest

25:34 - Ecosystem-Specific Challenges and Different Tactics For Different Landscapes

27:51 - Mary's Experience Providing Post-Fire Support In Mora, NM (Following Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak)

36:29 - Post-Fire Recommendations For The Southwest

40:49 - Utilizing Art And Theater For Fire Education

44:03 - Bringing Community Members In As Partners

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 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. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Sophie Gilbert joined us to talk about everything from nature-based climate solutions to why we should learn to better coexist with beavers to that one time Idaho Fish and Game decided to try parachuting beavers into mountain meadows in Idaho. Rest assured there were also a lot of beaver puns.

Beaver's role in building fire resilience is probably one of the most requested episode topics we've had since starting the podcast in 2020. We got a pretty solid Beavers and Fire 101, but also had the chance to dig in deeper to talk about areas where beavers have made an impact in protecting structures during wildfires, how Sophie's work at Vibrant Planet is helping to prioritize areas where beavers and nature-based interventions (like beaver dam analogs) could make the biggest difference, as well as what both of their visions are for an idyllic beaver-friendly and more fire-resilient world. Also, be sure to stick around to the end of the episode where we speak about the concept of a "Stewardship Economy," or creating a world that is more supportive of community building and stewardship/restoration work that supports both resilience and community—in other words, the things we really need not only in the wildfire space but also in the broader climate/conservation etc spaces. 

Here are links to a few of the things mentioned throughout the episode: 

Beaver, Bison, Horse Book—The Traditional Knowledge and Ecology of the Northern Great Plains

Emily Fairfax's website/research. 

A fantastic stop-motion rendering of how beaver's change the landscape and build fire resilience (created by Emily!)

Vibrant Planet's Land Tender— a multi-faceted planning and monitoring platform for treatment area prioritization, risk mapping and decision making. 

"Leave It To Beavers," Patagonia's Cleanest Line Blog—Amanda's story about Trout Unlimited and Northwest Youth Corps crews building BDA's in the John Day River watershed.  

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 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 communities.

Story one (timestamp: 6:32) centers on the experiences of volunteer wildland firefighters on the Blackfeet (Niitsitapi) Reservation, as well as on the history of Indigenous burning on Blackfeet Nation ancestral lands. Created by: Trysten Hannon, Callie Wood and Chloe Croff. 

Story two (12:29) is a profile of a student's grandfather, who spoke about his experiences as a Chief Mountain hotshot back in the 70s and 80s. Created by: Amanda Andersen-Marxer and Ariel McFadyean. 

Episode three (16:34) focuses on the experiences of a few modern day members of the Chief Mountain Hotshots. Created by: Sierra Freedenburg and Danaia Moreno. 

Story four (19:49) highlights how wildfires impact wildlife, and provided an opportunity for students to speak with employees at their reservation's fish and wildlife office. Created by: Rihanna ManyWhiteHorses, Shy'lee Kittson and Bailey Gobert. 

Finally, story five (24:11) shows the unexpected impacts of having an incident command post pop up at your high school during a major wildfire in your area. Created by: Lily Crawford, Reese Briney and Shiloh Williams. 

We owe a huge thank you to the students and teachers who worked hard to make this episode possible, as well as to Mary Auld of the Montana Media Lab, who pitched and coordinated this initiative. We'd also like to thank the instructors for this project—Kathleen Shannon, Elinor Smith and JoVonne Wagner. 

This episode was made possible with support from the American Wildfire Experience and Mystery Ranch Backpacks. 

For updates on the American Wildfire Experience's 2024 Digital Storytelling Micro Grants Program, follow them on Instagram at @wildfire.experience and @thesmokeygeneration. 

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 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 fire season in Canada. 

We even did some deep diving into the oil and gas industry's role in increasingly catastrophic fire seasons, about climate change and how we keep having unprecedented fire seasons—but our processes and protocols aren't catching up with how extreme conditions and fire behavior have become in some cases. 

We also highly recommend  Fire Weather for those who haven't read it yet. You can pick it up from my favorite local bookstore, Village Books, here. 

Timestamps: 

06:00 - Introduction

08:14 - 2016's Alberta Fire Warning of the Future

09:42 - John's Thoughts on the 2023 Fire Season

12:28 - The Shifting Baseline for Fire Fighting Efforts

16:55 - Weather Conditions Affect How Fire Behaves

19:26 - People's Humanity Makes Evacuation Efforts Possible

23:40 - Humanizing the Evacuation Process

25:01 - Interviewing Evacuees

28:18 - This Evacuation Changed Everyone's Lives Forever

29:34 - The Oil and Gas Industry Connection to Wildfire

31:56 - Humans are a Fire Species

35:32 - Society's Wealth Comes From Fire

37:38 - Gaps in Conversation Surrounding Wildfires

40:11 - We Have to Rethink Our Relationship With Fire

42:39 - John's Lessons Learned

44:12 - Houses Are Made From Petroleum Products

46:49 - Firefighting 90s Style Will Not Help Us

48:40 - No Precedent for Recent Fire Events

51:40 - This Requires a Nuanced Conversation

53:45 - Outro

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 (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 possibly could: Dr. McCarty has more than 15 years’ experience in applications of Earth observations and geospatial and data science to accurately quantify wildland and human-caused fire management and emissions, agriculture and food security, climate change impacts and adaptation, and land-cover/land-use change. 

Quick note that this episode was recorded in August 2023, so there are a few things we spoke about that are maybe not exactly timely right now, but are nonetheless relevant to the ongoing conversation about wildfire resilience (for example, the tragedy in Lahaina and the, at that time, still ongoing fire season in Canada).

To learn more about Dr. McCarty's background and research, check out her full NASA bio page. 

07:42 - Wildfire and Different Plant Species

09:05 - What Satellites Can and Cannot Tell Us

10:49 - The Lahaina Tragedy—Response, Fire/Management History on Maui

13:41 - Preparing To Deal With Fire and Building Resilience At Scale

17:06 - Invest In Being Good Neighbors

19:22 - Landscaping Choices as They Relate To Wildfire

20:43 - How We Can Thrive With Fire

22:41 - Why We Need More Prescribed Fire

24:49 - The Energy Grid As A Fire Risk

25:44 - New Emergency Notification System/Emergency Management Perspectives

27:59 - Agency Scientists Are Underutilized

30:12 - Emergency Management/Response and How It Can Save Lives

31:45 - Fire: Everybody's Problem, Everybody's Solution

33:08 - Fire Regimes in Boreal Forests

36:33 - Extreme Fire Year In Canada

38:28 -The Realities of Wildfire Evacuations

40:25 - The Arctic Council

44:43 - Closing

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 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 a wildfire last summer, as well as the processing he's had to do in the aftermath of this incident. 

As we wrap up this year of Life with Fire, we want to thank Mystery Ranch Backpacks for the ongoing support not only of this podcast, but of storytelling in the wildland fire space more generally. For one stellar example, we cannot recommend their series on Sasha Berleman ("The Fire Poppy") enough. Go check it out if you're looking for something to do in these wierd days between Christmas and New Years. 

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 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 spoke to some of his challenges and triumphs in pursuing wildland firefighting, and spoke especially to the role his father had in inspiring him to pursue this job. 

We appreciate both AWE's and Mystery Ranch's commitment to sharing the experiences of those working on the fireline, especially those from communities often underrepresented in content/media around wildland fire. This episode is the first of two that center the operational experiences of folks whose perspectives are not well represented in wildfire media. 

Need a gift for the outdoorsperson in your life? For mountain bikers, day hikers, travelers and festival lovers, I recommend the MR Hip Monkey.  It's almost too spacious—I always end up packing way more in it than I end up needing, but you never know when you're gonna need an extra layer or that second bag of gummy bears. 

For folks who love a good overnight ski trip, I can't recommend the Gallatin Peak 40 Liter pack enough. I've used this pack for everything from hut trips in the winter to traveling through Europe this fall to backpacking to alpine lakes in the summer. For those who don't have a ton of space to have a bag for every activity in their life, the Gallatin Peak checks multiple boxes and is a wonderfully multipurpose pack that can keep your life simple. Who needs four bags when you really just need this one!?

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 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 and information on how to get involved—I highly recommend you go check it out!

New Fire Networks Website!!

Marek has quite a background of working in good fire implementation and policy, and recently represented 501 c3 organizations with expertise in forest management and environmental conservation on the Wildfire Commission which released its report and recommendations back in September.

In his role with the Nature Conservancy, Marek works to, quite simply, bring fire to the people while leading an organization that prioritizes our collective relationship with fire. All of TNC's programming through the Fire Networks is focused on developing more avenues for people to connect with fire, whether by exchanging knowledge/training,  sharing resources or empowering individuals and communities to build resilience to or change their relationships with fire.

We covered some ground with this one—not only about his role in the Wildfire Commission, but also his work with the Fire Networks, Amanda's experience at her first TREX back in October, and the future of the Fire Networks. This was such a fun conversation that was a long time coming, and we were left feeling like we could have talked to Marek for much, much longer than we did! Maybe a part two is in order....

Don't forget to check out the Fire Networks' new website!

You can also learn more about the new partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the Forest Service here. 

Looking for Christmas gifts for the outdoorsperson/backpacker/firefighter/hunter/skier in your life? Well boy howdy you should probably check out Mystery Ranch's selection of packs, made for every hobby you could possibly need a pack for.

I'm a huge fan of Mystery Ranch packs and am an especially big fan of their Saddle Peak ski pack and their Hip Monkey pack, which is a glorified fanny pack that is durable as hell and has SO MUCH SPACE. I use it for long days on my mountain bike, and also recently used it basically as a purse during a three-week trip backpacking around Italy. 

Timestamps:

03:55 - Episode Introduction

05:57 - Process For The Wildfire Commission

08:02 - Themes In Marek's Work

09:29 - Work Groups Within The Commission 

10:02 - Marek's Current Action Items

10:52 - Collaborative Approach To Recommendations 

12:11 - An All-Society Approach

13:02 - Multi-Year Funding

13:58 - Community Wildfire Defense Grants

15:21 - Wildfire Adaptation PODs

17:13 - Focus On What Is In Reach

18:14 - Community Level Practitioners

19:00 - The Fire Networks Partnership

21:24 - The Indigenous Peoples Burning Network

22:37 - Proactive Community Building

23:47 - Amanda's Experience On TREX

24:56 - The PIO Position

25:48 - Current Happenings At Nature Conservancy

27:21 - Indigenous TREX Experiences

28:41 - Women In Prescribed Fire Training

30:09 - How To Get Involved

31:04 - Ongoing Efforts

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 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 the chance to chat with Kelly about the commission, and she was able to provide us a glimpse into the process and efforts behind their whopping 340-page report. We spoke explicitly about how the recommendations relate to wildland firefighters, as well as what Kelly was able to bring to the commission with her extensive background working in wildland fire operations.

We're hoping to release a few more episodes about the commission report, which will focus on other recommendations and themes—including community resilience/adaptation, Indigenous burning and scaling up projects that reduce wildfire risk. Stay tuned!

Kelly is an outspoke advocate for wildland firefighters through her work at Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, which you should definitely check out if you haven't already. 

This episode is brought to you by Mystery Ranch, which makes the best fire pack in the business--we will die on this hill! If you're looking for a fire pack (or a backpacking pack, or a briefcase, or a hunting pack, or a...well you get it), then Mystery Ranch is the place to go. You'll probably never have to buy a pack again!

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 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-Davis, about her new assistant professor position at the University of Kansas, about "rematriating" fire (bringing  women back into cultural fire decision making) and generally bringing more humility into the use of fire. We also spoke at length about her recent paper titled "Solastalgia to Soliphilia: Cultural Fire, Climate Change, and Indigenous Healing," which she co-authored with Erica Tom and Chairman Ron Goode of the North Fork Mono Tribe (who coined the term "Traditional Ecological Practices").

A bit more about Melinda: As a fire scholar, Dr. Adams concentrates on encouraging public participation in prescribed and controlled burns, getting more people fire certified, and placing more Indigenous-led cultural fire to the ground with allies, agencies, and Tribal members— “decolonizing fire” as she describes. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Haskell Indian Nations University (one of thirty-seven tribal colleges located across the United States), her Master of Science from Purdue University, and PhD from the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the intersection of ecology, environmental science, environmental policy and Native American studies; through her research and work, she envisions a future where cultural fire is used as a climate adaptation strategy while mitigating the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire.

This is an important episode for those interested in Indigenous knowledge, understanding and practice of land stewardship—including the use of fire—but is absolutely essential for anyone who works in an agency or organization that emphasizes the importance of TEK, and especially for those who recognize a need for a different and more humble approach to fire and active stewardship.  

Beyond that, if you're looking for an antidote to your climate grief, look no further than this conversation with Melinda. Her energy for the work is incredible, and is bolstered by countless other Indigenous practitioners and allies who envision a more sustainable, Indigenous-led, community-based future of land stewardship and fire use. 

Timestamps: 

07:17 - Introduction

09:42 - Fire in Tribe's Cultural Stories

10:35 - Soliphilia

12:32 - California and Tribal Recognition

15:19 - Healing Powers of Cultural Fire

17:34 - State Agencies Invited to Cultural Fire Demos

18:37 - Wildfires and A Lack of Relationship with the Land

21:20 - Community Education

23:30 - Generational Protocol and Practices

24:46 - Traditional Ecological Practices

27:25 - Melinda's Teaching and Her Students' Focus

31:50 - The Humble Fire Approach

34:12 - Learn Homeland History Where You Burn

36:15 - Caring for the Place You Live

38:28 - Collaboration with Different Tribes

39:31 - Storytelling to Translate Scientific Findings

44:02 - Final Thoughts from Melinda