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

Triss 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 stick with fire as a career. Through it all, she provides some incredible perspective on what it's like to navigate modern fire culture as a trans woman, and offers some suggestions for folks who want to build a more inclusive culture on their own crews and districts. 

This episode is sponsored by #ForestProud—a community of land stewards focused on keeping forests as forests while fighting for forest climate solutions in the era of climate change. They serve to "connect the dots" between organizations, initiatives, those interested in joining the forest sector and those already involved. To check out some of their great content, follow them on Instagram and Twitter at @forestproud. To become a member, learn more about them or donate, check out their website: https://forestproud.org/. 

Bobbie 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 woman, and has experienced the fire world as both a man and woman, having transitioned to female between fire seasons in the late 1980s. This gives Bobbie an exceedingly rare perspective on gender dynamics on the fireline—perspectives that she now shares widely through her podcast, Bobbie on Fire, as well as her new book, Both Sides of the Fireline, which is available for pre-order and will be released this fall. Through it all, Bobbie maintains an incredible ability to tell stories that serve not only as valuable lessons learned, but often as funny and relatable anecdotes for anyone who has worked in fire—and especially for those who are underrepresented in the fire space. 

To hear more of Bobbie's stories, check out her podcast and website. 

To pre-order Bobbie's book, find it on Barnes and Noble  or through our host's favorite local bookstore, Village Books in Fairhaven, WA. 

For more information on our newest sponsor, #ForestProud, check out their website. 

To support Life with Fire, check out our Patreon. 

In 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 fire and fire management in Banff National Park! 

Mystery Ranch's new women's-specific fire packs: https://www.mysteryranch.com/Packs/Fire/New

Life with Fire Patreon: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod

In 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 achievements in bringing more progressive fire management to Banff National Park. We broke this conversation up in to two parts, with the first focusing on fire ecology/regimes in and around Banff, as well as some of the prescribed fire initiatives Jane has led in the park (and a whole lot more).

Stay tuned for the second half of our conversation with Jane, which will be published later next week. 

We also want to give a big shout out to our new sponsor, Mystery Ranch Backpacks. To browse their seemingly endless catalog of backpacks for any activity you can think of, check out their website: www.mysteryranch.com

To see Mystery Ranch's new women-specific fire packs (!!), check out https://www.mysteryranch.com/Packs/Fire/New.  

To donate to Life with Fire, check out our Patreon—patrons who donate at the $15 level and up will recieve a Mystery Ranch swag pack, while those who donate at $20 and up will get a Life with Fire calendar: www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod