Welcome to our second episode with women and non-binary firefighters who have written books about their experiences working both in fire and on hotshot crews more specifically. Our guest for this episode is HOTSHOT author River Selby (they/them), who spent seven years as a wildland firefighter—four of which were as a hotshot—from 2000 to 2010. They've since gotten their undergrad and MFA (in fiction) at Syracuse, and are currently working towards a PhD in Nonfiction with an emphasis in postcolonial histories, North American colonization, and postmodern literature and culture. This unique background has River to create a phenomenally in-depth book that covers not only their own experiences of working on crews—experiences that helped them heal from traumatic childhood and teenage experiences, while bringing their own challenges and traumas. Between these personal vignettes of life on the life, River paints a rich history of how fire suppression and colonization in the Western US (and elsewhere!) have set the stage for our modern relationship with fire. They were just 19 when they got their first fire job, on a contract crew in Oregon. They'd found their way into fire after years of deep instability, with childhood traumas manifesting as addiction, homelessness and violence when they were a teenager. Fire proved to provide both distraction and an unexpected stability compared to their previous reality, but brought with it its own challenges and traumatic experiences—sexual

We're bringing you two, count em TWO, episodes with women and non-binary firefighters and writers who have written books about their experiences working both in fire and on hotshot crews more specifically. The first in this short series is with author Kelly Ramsey, whose book WILDFIRE DAYS was released in June. Kelly and I spoke about some of the emotional toll of fighting fire—including the terrifying feeling of not feeling like you belong, especially in such an intense work environment—as well as the process of writing a book (including the nearly 50,000 words she wrote in her Notes app during her time in fire). A large part of our conversation centered on the many intricacies of hotshot culture that we both witnessed (and which, in some cases, left us both confounded). Many anecdotes, laughs and shared experiences ensued. This was a fun one to record and hopefully it's just as fun to listen to!

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.

Welcome to the third and final episode of our Community Wildfire Resilience Series, supported by Fire Aside! In this episode, we spoke with Butte County Fire Safe Council Executive Director Taylor Nilsson. Butte County, CA has seen more catastrophic fire in the last eight years than most places in the West, possibly even the world. Starting with the Camp Fire in 2018 (85 killed, 14,000 homes lost), then the North Complex in 2020 (16 killed, 2,300 structures lost), then the Park Fire in 2024 (700+ structures destroyed), Butte County has seen 50% of its Wildland Urban Interface impacted by wildfire in the last seven years, and over 90% of its WUI impacted since 1999. This being the case, folks in this area have a deep understanding not only of preparing for wildfire, but of the long process of recovering from it—while knowing from experience that they simultaneously need to be preparing for the next one.

Welcome to the second episode in our series about community-level wildfire resilience! We spoke with Fire Aside CEO and co-founder Jason Brooks about how Fire Aside—a home assessment platform that allows agencies to have direct 1:1 engagement with residents on resilience actions they can take—fits into bigger picture policy, data and decision making around community wildfire resilience in California and beyond.

Welcome to the first episode in a three-part series about community wildfire resilience, sponsored by Fire Aside. This episode explores a number of big, meaty topics you've likely been hearing about in the wildfire space, from wildfire insurance to categorical exclusions to NEPA to wildfire resilience policy in the era of urban conflagrations like those in LA this winter. Our fearless leader on this journey is former CAL FIRE Chief Deputy Director Chris Anthony, who has worked with some major players in the wildfire space since retiring in 2023. His consultation clients have included entities in the nonprofit, academic, philanthropic, agency and private industry (including Fire Aside) spaces, while also serving as a board member for the Earth Fire Alliance and California Fire Safe Council.

Today's episode is all about post-fire—how to plan and prepare for post-fire challenges like debris flows and landslides, how to recover, how to maintain a love of place after it's impacted by fire, and how we can reduce suffering in this often dynamic phase of wildfire response and recovery. Our guest on this topic is Collin Haffey, the Post Fire Recovery Program Manager for the Washington DNR, who prior to working with the DNR worked as the Forest and Watershed Health Coordinator for the New Mexico Forestry Division during the catastrophic 2022 Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire.

There's been a lot of postulating about whether the firing of some 4400 (and counting) Forest Service and National Park employees on Friday will have an impact on fire operations this summer. We spoke with Riva Duncan, who has decades of experience in fire operations for the US Forest Service (before retiring with the agency), and her answer couldn't be more clear: yes, these losses in capacity are *already* having an impact on our ability to suppress wildfires this summer.

In our sixth and final episode of the Fire in the Southwest Series—sponsored by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and the Arizona Wildfire Initiative—we explore the complex, multicultural fire histories and management dynamics in New Mexico, with Deputy State Forester and Tribal Liaison Lindsey Quam. New Mexico's recent relationship with fire has been fraught with distrust in the aftermath of the 2022 Calf Canyon Hermits Peak Fire, which started from an escaped prescribed fire and an escaped pile burn. Lindsey's career has been bookended by such events, having started his career in Los Alamos, NM in the aftermath of the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, which also started as an escaped prescribed fire. This has allowed him to witness first hand how public trust has ebbed and flowed around the use of prescribed fire. It's also presented opportunities for him to help shape and better understand the many mixed emotions New Mexicans have around this topic. Lindsey spoke to how the intersecting cultures and management values across New Mexico—including Indigenous peoples, the Hispanic population and, well, white people—presents challenges but also opportunities in trying to extoll the merits of prescribed fire. "There’s no dispute amongst native New Mexicans who live off the land—there is a recognition that fire is important and necessary, but there's also a fear," Lindsey, who is himself a member of the Zuni Pueblo, said. Lindsey also shared how his agency is scaling up forest treatments through collaboration, and establishing priority landscapes to implement landscape-scale resilience projects.

For our fifth episode of the the Fire in the Southwest Series, we're talking managed wildfires, which has a number of alter egos depending on who you talk to in the wildfire world, some of which include "wildland fire use" or "managing wildfires for resource benefit". Dr. Jose "Pepe" Iniguez, a research ecologist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, is our fearless leader on this journey through the fraught, occasionally contentious world of managed fire. Pepe has had a long career studying wildfire impacts in forested landscapes while building a better understanding of how our public lands have been shaped by disturbances like wildfire. His takeaway? We can't effectively manage forests at the landscape scale without the help of wildfires, and managed fire is the most feasible answer to the question of how we reach "scale" in our ability to build landscape resilience.

If you've found yourself wondering "where the heck is the aircraft?" while watching a fire burn near you, this is the episode for you. Guest Matt Lynde—a helicopter operations specialist for the Forest Service's Regional Office in California—gave us a run-down on why some fires have huge airshows and others have almost none, and even tackled a few common misconceptions about the use of aircraft in fighting wildfires. Among these misconceptions is the idea that aircraft put fires out and that if you don't see aircraft on a fire, that means it's not a high priority for fire managers. As Matt explains in this episode, there's a ton that goes into the decisions on where aircraft goes and when, and noted how challenging it is to prioritize certain fires over others during big fire seasons when resources are limited. Matt also spoke about his career as a helicopter coordinator, and how he climbed the ranks from being on engines and helitack for the Forest Service early in his career to finding an interest in aerial supervision and coordination later in his career. If you have an interest in working on the aerial side of things within the Forest Service, this is a good episode for you.

With fire season escalating across the West this week, many people are downloading Watch Duty App for the first time. But what is Watch Duty all about? Why was it created? Where does their information come from? What do agency employees think about it? We spoke to Watch Duty CEO John Mills about the Watch Duty app as well as fire technology more broadly, and gave him a chance to respond to some listener questions from PIOs, wildland firefighters, community resilience experts and others in the Life with Fire community. His responses are about as no-BS as they come, and he provided an honest assessment of where the app is currently and where he'd like it to be in the near and far-off future. A few things they're adding in the near future include a version of the app just for first responders, which John speaks to in the episode, while in the longer term he's looking forward to exploring how Watch Duty can provide more opportunities for community education about wildfire and wildfire resilience.

Welcome to episode four of our Fire in the Southwest Series, supported by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium as well as the Arizona Wildfire Initiative! Today's guest, Zander Evans, is the executive director of the Forest Stewards Guild, which has a mission of promoting ecologically-, economically-, and socially-responsible forestry as a means of sustaining the integrity of forest ecosystems and the human communities dependent upon them. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Guild's team—including Zander, who has worked there for over 17 years—has seen the first-hand impacts of some of the most destructive wildfires of the last two decades, including the 2022 Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire. Zander and Amanda spoke about the role of the Forest Stewards Guild in helping provide more capacity for often resource-strapped agencies, as well as how their roles are shifting with the legacy and rise in megafires like the CC/HP Fire. We discussed the Guild's objective to connect work on the ground to policy, while creating a network of land stewards that can learn from each other and share resources, lessons learned and other critical information.

Welcome to our third episode of our Fire in the Southwest series! In this episode, we spoke with Jon Martin, who is the Director of Native American Forest and Rangeland Management Programming at the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University. Jon spent three decades working in forestry before retiring, and now uses his extensive interagency background to find pathways that can help tribes achieve their management goals within a Western fire management framework. This topic is especially prescient right now, as the Wildfire Commission Report was explicit in its recommendations to incorporate more Indigenous knowledge into land management (see: recommendations 12, 15, 16). However, while this directive is a step in the right direction, actually accomplishing it will require overcoming significant workforce and budget constraints at the ground level, especially within tribal communities. Jon and Amanda spoke about what this integration of different management practices can look like, how to overcome those barriers, the differences between cultural and agency fire, as well as the fundamental question of whether or not the differences between cultural and agency fire can be meaningfully reconciled. Jon also provided a great example of this integration working (the San Carlos Apache Tribe's use of Crisis Strategy/Infrastructure Bill funding). Finally, we wrapped the episode up with a discussion about the nature of federal land agency employment, which all but requires employees to move locations every 3-5 years to move up in their careers. Jon spoke about how the collaborative/shared stewardship pathway that is needed to meaningfully integrate Indigenous management into Western management requires a wholesale commitment to developing interagency relationships, and how this should be a major priority moving forward. "It’s not about going out and managing forests, silvicultural prescription or even forest management," Jon said in our conversation. "It’s become all about people management, almost a social science. I think people are starting to realize that. It’s a softer approach but it’s very real.” This conversation and the rest of our Fire in the Southwest series is supported by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, as well as the Arizona Wildfire Initiative. We're so grateful for their support!

What is it like to watch vegetation type-conversion in real time? How are invasive grasses changing the ecology of the desert and broader Southwest? What's being done to protect and restore Southwest ponderosa pine forests? This episode with Tonto National Forest fire ecologist Mary Lata dives into the fire regimes of the Southwest, how they're changing by the year, how invasive grasses are influencing those changes, and particularly how she's beginning to see more fire in the Sonoran Desert, where fire was not historically common. We also spoke about her work within the Four Forest Restoration Project, which aims to restore and protect the significant ponderosa pine forests within the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab and Tonto national forests.

Welcome to the first part of our six-episode series all about the Southwest, sponsored by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and the Arizona Wildfire Initiative! In our introductory episode for the series, we spoke with Mary Stuever, who is the Cimarron District Forester for New Mexico Forestry Division. Mary has a breadth of experience across disciplines in the fire world, which is well-reflected in our conversation. She's worked in suppression, prevention, fire ecology, community education, post-fire support and public information, among other roles in her long career in fire. As such, we touched on everything from her background in suppression (and subsequent health problems from smoke exposure) to her time providing post-fire community support for the folks in Mora, NM, which was devastated by the 2022 Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire. Mora was not only impacted by the fire itself, but also by subsequent flooding and debris flows that destroyed wells, choked out acequias (critical agricultural waterways) and destroyed untold homes, properties and livelihoods. Mary reflected on the situation she found herself in in such a devastating post-fire environment, including what was needed and opportunities she saw for helping other communities prepare for similar situations. She also gave us a quick Southwest Fire Ecology 101 lesson, and was all around a great guest to chat about the huge diversity of wildfire issues facing the Southwest right now. Most of the topics we spoke to will be elaborated on in greater detail in upcoming episodes, so we hope you'll stick around and listen in as we release more episodes of this series over the next six weeks.

The long-awaited beaver episode! In this episode, we learn about how beavers are not only champions of wildfire resilience but are also sleeper endurance athletes (climbing mountains to find new watersheds), dedicated anti-capitalists (not giving a **** about the regulatory or material concerns of humans), expert engineers (casually restoring entire watersheds) and pretty handy companions to have in our pursuit of restoring wetland habitat and landscape resilience across the West (and beyond). Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Sophie Gilbert joined us to talk about everything from nature-based climate solutions to why we should learn to better coexist with beavers to that one time Idaho Fish and Game decided to trying airdropping beavers into mountain meadows in Idaho. Rest assured there were also a lot of beaver puns.

Today's episode is a special one. We collaborated with the Montana Media Lab—a program of the University of Montana's School of Journalism—to help support their winter "Youth Voices" workshop, which empowers young Indigenous storytellers to learn more about audio storytelling while sharing stories from their communities. This episode features five stories from high school students in Browning and Florence, Montana, all of which are centered around wildfire's presence in their communities. Story one (timestamp: 6:32) centers on the experiences of volunteer wildland firefighters on the Blackfeet (Niitsitapi) Reservation, as well as on the history of Indigenous burning on Blackfeet Nation ancestral lands. Story two (12:29) is a profile of one of the student's grandfathers, who spoke about his experiences as a Chief Mountain hotshot back in the 70s and 80s. Episode three (16:34) focuses on the experiences of a few modern day members of the Chief Mountain Hotshots. Story four (19:49) highlights how wildfires impact wildlife, and provided an opportunity for students to speak with employees at their reservation's fish and wildlife office. Finally, story five (24:11) shows the unexpected impacts of having an incident command post pop up at your high school during a major summer wildfire in your area. This episode and collaboration were made possible with support from the American Wildfire Experience and Mystery Ranch Backpacks.

In this episode, we had a chance to sit down with author John Vaillant, who published a new book last summer about the 2016 Fort McMurray fires in Northern Alberta. The book, "Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World" is an in-depth exploration of the fires, which released in June 2023. We not only spoke about his reporting process in the aftermath of a catastrophic wildfire, but we also touched on some of the book's major themes and how these were, in many cases, paralleled by the 2023 fire season in Canada.

In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Jessica McCarty—who is the Biospheric Sciences branch chief at NASA's Ames Research Center—about her career, her work on fire in boreal and arctic ecosystems, her perspectives on fire technology (spoiler: she's a bit fan of predictive modeling) and so many other topics that I couldn't possibly list them all here. Here's her NASA bio, which explains her background better than we ever possibly could: Dr. McCarty has more than 15 years’ experience in applications of Earth observations and geospatial and data science to accurately quantify wildland and human-caused fire management and emissions, agriculture and food security, climate change impacts and adaptation, and land-cover/land-use change.