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 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 suppression world to her work as a prescribed fire advocate and current chair of the Oregon Prescribed Fire Council.

This conversation was recorded back in September in Eugene, Oregon, as fire crews prepped to burn a unit nearby. This conversation is also broken up into two parts—part two will be released next week. 

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 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 chatted next to an old burn unit above Ashland, Oregon, in a popular recreation area—this being the case, the audio in this episode has a little more character than normal, thanks to wind, birds and mountain bikers. We also had a short visit from a local hiker, who shared some of his own thoughts on fire use in the area, smoke impacts of prescribed fire units and his perceptions of wildfire risk in Ashland. It was a fun side conversation and a great example of how engaged community members are in what's happening on the land in their backyards. 

To learn more about the OSU Fire Extension and stay up to date on its workshops, webinars and other programming, check out its website or Twitter.

To support Life with Fire, check out our Patreon. 

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 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 website. 

Click here to donate to our Patreon—for a limited time, those who donate at the $20 level this month will receive a Life with Fire Calendar!

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 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 how these practices are informed by traditional Indigenous values and land management objectives. While at the IAWF conference in Alberta last week, we had the opportunity to speak with Francis Johnson, who is the Forest Manager for Alkali Resource Management LLC—a First-Nations-owned land management company that manages a community forest in Alkali Lake, British Columbia. Francis, who is a member of the Secwepemc (Shuswap) First Nations Community, gave us some wonderful insights into how the oral histories of his band continue to inform land management activities on the community forest. We also spoke about the band's collaborations with agencies like the BC Wildfire Service, and the reconciliations that needed to happen to make those relationships both possible and productive.

To learn more about the work that Francis and Alkalive Resource Management do, check out the company's website: http://www.armltd.org/

To learn more about the oral histories and land management objectives of the Secwepemc Nation, check out this presentation from Francis that was featured by the BC Community Forest Association: https://bccfa.ca/cfa-wildfire-workshop-2019-presentation-francis-johnson/

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 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 that come up in the ways we talk and think about smoke, as well as some legitimate, scalable solutions for reducing the impacts of wildfire smoke, especially on susceptible populations like those experiencing homelessness, those who don't have the financial means of improving indoor air quality and those with preexisting health conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to smoke's impacts. Thanks to Sarah for taking a moment to chat with us, and hopefully this conversation provides some useful context for those who felt the effects of smoke this summer and fall. 

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 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 explored the proliferation of Lyme disease as a result of fire exclusion, a problem that is most pronounced in the Northeast, and how that's inordinately impacting the outdoor community in certain regions.  

Learn more about Jude's breadth of wildfire and economics research here. 

You can learn more our sponsor, Protect our Winters, and their Stoke the Vote campaign—which encourages the outdoor community to do their research, register to vote and make their voices heard ahead of this fall's midterms. Learn more about the campaign and POW's other work here. 

To support Life with Fire, follow us on Instagram and  Twitter; you can also support us/help pay the bills (and our host's burgeoning addiction to iced lattes) by donating to our Patreon. 

Song featured in POW ad: The Times They Are A Changin' by Goth Babe

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 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 continue to be impacted by wildfires that are increasing in size and creeping further into the alpine. 

To see more of what Andrew's doing, give him and the Snow Lab a follow on Twitter. 

Learn more about Protect our Winters and their Stoke the Vote campaign at their website. 

Support Life with Fire by donating to our Patreon! We'll send you some swag for your troubles, and really appreciate the support. 

Music featured in POW Ad: The Times They Are A Changin' by Goth Babe. 

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 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 aftermath of wildfires, and has some great perspectives on how folks who like to use trails can become more engaged in keeping those trails looking good both before and after wildfire impacts. 

To see what Dillon's been up to, check out his website as well as a recent film he worked on about the impacts of drought, beetle kill and wildfire on trails in southwest Colorado. 

To learn more about Protect our Winters, the sponsor of our wildfire and recreation series, and their Stoke the Vote campaign, check out their website. 

Music featured in the POW ad by Goth Babe. 

To support Life with Fire, check out our Patreon.

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 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 remember fire's place in many of the landscapes we all love to recreate in. Jamie has a background in wildfire policy and currently works as a policy associate for the Outdoor Alliance—making him a perfect guest guide us through the growing relevance of how wildfires will continue to impact recreation and public lands access, as well as what we can do about it. 

Protect our Winters is a climate advocacy organization that engages the outdoor community in on-the-ground and legislative climate action. We encourage you to check out their website, where you can pledge to vote in the upcoming midterm elections, learn more about what they do as well as how to support them. 

You can learn more about the Outdoor Alliance here.

If you're feeling extra benevolent today, consider becoming a Patron and donating to the Life with Fire Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

Music from Goth Babe.