Life with Fire

The Social Contract of Managing Fire with Stephen Pyne


Listen Later

Welcome to our second episode with THE Stephen Pyne! Stephen is a renowned author and fire historian who, in addition to his academic life, also spent over a decade working on a fire crew on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon early in his career. Given this background, he seemed like quite possibly the perfect person to chat with about the recent Dragon Bravo Fire in Grand Canyon National Park. 

For a quick primer, the Dragon Bravo Fire started three miles north of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon during a lightning storm on July 5th. On Sunday, it destroyed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of other buildings in the adjacent complex. It was being managed for resource benefit, or was in other words a "managed fire". I’m not going to go into all the details on the fire itself, but here’s a thorough, measured analysis from my friend Zeke at the Lookout regarding what took place over the week or so that the fire was being “managed for resource benefit” (I’ll get into what this means in a minute). Zeke also provides some of the behind the scenes context on wildfire decision making and some other educated thoughts that are very deserving of your time.

Stephen, as you'd expect, had some great perspective to share about this event. While we avoided armchair quarterbacking the decision making on the fire, Stephen was able to speak a bit about the decades of precedent for this kind of wildfire tragedy in the Southwest, about the background of managed fire use in the National Parks, and how important managed fire can be to reducing wildfire risk—but only if we acknowledge the limitations of managed fire policy and take more strides to improve our processes and learn from our mistakes. 

One of the improvements Stephen advocates for is being more forthcoming about managed fire with the public, which would include agencies being very clear about what managed fire is and isn't, what the objectives of managed fire typically are, what preparations have been made to make managing a fire the right decision and also—importantly—that mistakes can happen and how we can better prepare in the event that they do. 

The biggest takeaway from this episode is that we've done a poor job of building trust with the public, and especially so around the practice of managed fire. Perhaps now is a good time to have that conversation, and to figure out how we can reframe this conversation so that people get more of a glimpse at managed fire when it goes right?

For more background on Stephen, check out his TED Talk on how fire shapes everything, or this great essay he published in Scientific American last spring.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Life with FireBy Amanda Monthei

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

116 ratings


More shows like Life with Fire

View all
On the Media by WNYC Studios

On the Media

9,166 Listeners

Radiolab by WNYC Studios

Radiolab

43,969 Listeners

The Dirtbag Diaries by Duct Tape Then Beer

The Dirtbag Diaries

2,587 Listeners

Freakonomics Radio by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Freakonomics Radio

32,299 Listeners

Reveal by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

Reveal

8,276 Listeners

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts by Slate Podcasts

Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

3,529 Listeners

Pod Save America by Crooked Media

Pod Save America

86,750 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

111,917 Listeners

Up First from NPR by NPR

Up First from NPR

56,285 Listeners

Straight White American Jesus by Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

Straight White American Jesus

1,913 Listeners

Strict Scrutiny by Crooked Media

Strict Scrutiny

5,697 Listeners

Consider This from NPR by NPR

Consider This from NPR

6,070 Listeners

Unexplainable by Vox

Unexplainable

2,222 Listeners

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart by Comedy Central

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

10,613 Listeners

The Hotshot Wake Up by The Hotshot Wake Up

The Hotshot Wake Up

198 Listeners