Life with Fire

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. 

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 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 places like South Africa, Greece and Australia, among others. The result of that work (which can be found here) provided a profound framework for his continued work in academia, which has largely been funded by his work as a wildland firefighter through the summers. 

Harrison encourages firefighters to lean in to the unique experiences they've had if they leave fire, especially as so many agencies, organizations and businesses are trying to find solutions in the wildfire space. We also spoke about his fellowship experiences, as well as what he is researching as a grad student at UC Berkeley, working primarily in the wildland urban interface realm. 

A few things that Harrison mentioned that we wanted to link to: 

The Mountain Legacy Project

The Pau Costa Foundation

As always, we owe a massive thanks to MYSTERY RANCH for sponsoring this episode of Life with Fire, as well as a number of previous episodes. MYSTERY RANCH is proud to be the first pack company to provide women’s specific harnessing in their HOTSHOT Line as well as their HOT SPEED pack in our engine/IA category. To see their entire line of fire packs—including their women's packs and packs for international firefighters who don't use fire shelters—check out their website here. 

Finally, if you'd like to support Life with Fire with a monthly donation, please check out our Patreon for tier options—Patrons who donate at the $7 tier and above will get some Life with Fire and Mystery Ranch swag! 

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 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 understanding of prescribed fire and its usage (or lack thereof).

Thankfully, our guest this week—Daniel Godwin of the Ember Alliance—agreed to guide us on this journey into all the behind-the-scenes liability and insurance business that needs to happen before any driptorches are lit. Daniel—who is the director of programs and partnerships at the Ember Alliance in Colorado—brings an obvious passion and long-honed wit to how he talks about wildfire, and our conversation covered the gamut from how these policies affect our current fire reality, why they're impacting prescribed fire initiatives and what is being done to make it better.

If you're more the reading type, Daniel just published a piece over on the Ember Alliance's blog about this same topic. You can check it out here. 

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 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 Nation communities over their ancestral lands, Amy also has an extensive background in researching the connection between First Nation communities and wildfire. Her most recent research centers heavily on wildfire evacuations in First Nations communities in Canada; various overlapping factors (like remote locations and a lack of emergency response infrastructure) often result in disproportionate wildfire impacts to First Nations communities.

We owe a huge thank you to Amy for coming on the show to share her perspective; it was a privilege to learn about the work she's involved in, as well as how First Nations communities continue to reestablish control over their homelands—while touching on some of the roadblocks she's experienced along the way. To hear more from Amy, you can check out her absolutely stellar podcast, "Good Fire," here: https://yourforestpodcast.com/good-fire-podcast

Finally, this episode is sponsored by Mystery Ranch Backpacks, which recently came out with women's-specific sizing on their fire packs (!!!) which we are inordinately excited about. Whether you need something that can keep up on day after day of digging line or a bomber duffel bag for weekend trips, you can rest assured that Mystery Ranch packs come ready to be used hard and put away wet, no matter what. You can dig around on their website here: https://www.mysteryranch.com/womens-hotshot-tl-wildland-fire-pack