Life with Fire

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 authorit...

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 work...

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...

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...

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 landsca...

Isabeau Ottolini is one of the foremost experts on imbuing risk communications with values that are informed by communities themselves. As a PhD candidate on community-based communications at the Open University of Catalonia in Spain, Isabeau spends a significant amount of time thinking about how we can best reach those most at risk of wildfire's impacts, while also allowing those folks to inform...

We're big fans of the Mt. Adams Resource Stewards here at Life with Fire. You may recall our episode with the organization's Executive Director back in 2022 ( episode 28 ), but we're back today with an episode with MARS' Stewardship Crew Lead, Lucas King, who shared his thoughts on expanding capacity for more burning and fuels reduction from the ground up in Washington State.  Lucas and Amanda spo...

What can life after wildland firefighting look like? With the issues facing wildland firefighters these days (including but not limited to: abysmal pay, nonexistent benefits and perpetually being let down by elected officials who suggest they might actually do something about it etc) many in this essential but overworked workforce are likely considering that question themselves. After asking himse...

We'll be honest—we've been hoping to talk to Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz since this podcast's inception. Franz is responsible for the management of over six millions acres of public lands and the state's wildland firefighting workforce, so we were pretty excited to finally have the opportunity to have a conversation with her a few weeks ago.  Our conversation ran the...

Our 50th episode! In today's episode, we spoke to professional forester Emily Dolhansky about the fire-adapted ecosystems of her home state of New Jersey. Perhaps you've seen some footage of the Jimmy's Waterhole Fire (pretty good fire name tbh) in southern New Jersey—as of this writing, it's sitting at nearly 4,000 acres and 75% containment after exhibiting fire behavior that would be extreme by...

As indicated by the title of this episode, we covered some SERIOUS ground in our conversation with Dr. Natasha Stavros, Director of the Earth Lab at CU Boulder. Natasha's background in the academic realm combined with personal experiences with wildfire (being evacuated from one of California's first megafires back in the early 2000s, and most recently seeing the impacts of the Marshall Fire on the...

In our second episode with Oregon Prescribed Fire Council found Amanda Rau, we discuss how she has connected the dots between her philosophy degree and her fire career, what other agencies and jobs she is interested in pursuing, the Oregon Certified Burn Manager Course and her vision for getting fire in the hands of more people in Oregon and beyond.  Learn more about the Oregon Prescribed Fire Cou...

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 perspe...

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, fin...

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...

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'v...

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. Sara...

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 afte...

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 m...

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 cr...

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...

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 sco...

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 abo...

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 m...

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 empower...