Life with Fire

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 shares his thoughts on expanding capacity for more burning and fuels reduction from the ground up in Washington State.

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...

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

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 almost any geographic area's standards...

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 Analytics Hub at CU Boulder...

In our second episode with Oregon Prescribed Fire Council founder 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 how to get fire in the hands of more people in Oregon and beyond.

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...

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...

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.

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...