Life with Fire – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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. 

Timestamps: 

07:33 - Interview starts, John explains his background in Silicon Valley

10:10 - The Beginnings Of Watch Duty 

12:12 - John's experiences of the Walbridge Fire 

13:21 - Watch Duty's Functionality 

16:20 - How they find reporters/contributors for Watch Duty 

18:06 - Concerns and Questions from PIOs/PAOs 

21:07 - Gaining Trust And Users 

22:25 - The Future of The App

25:01 - Upcoming Watch Duty Features   

26:48 - Public Education Features 

29:40 - Watch Duty's Role In The Fire Tech Space 

34:48 - John's Thoughts On the Fire Tech Industry 

42:39 - Watch Duty's Main Benefit Is Efficiency 

47:16 - How People Use Watch Duty 

49:50 - The Reason They Don't Allow Comments on Watch Duty

50:49 - Outro 

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 that can help others dealing with similar issues across the country. 

We covered a lot in this episode, and in classic form, Amanda asked many difficult-to-answer questions that Zander did a great job of tackling—including questions about trauma-informed community engagement, how to continue to get good work done within a legacy of escaped prescribed fires and how communities can more effectively prepare for the "post-fire" piece of the resilience equation. 

Things mentioned in the episode:

Santa Fe Fireshed

GoFundMe for Smokey Bear Hotshots. Many of the crew's members tragically lost their homes in the fires near Ruidoso, NM last week. They were responding to the fire when this happened. Please support if you're able!

Timestamps: 

07:56 - The Guild's Intersection With Wildfire Management

13:38 - Engagement Practices Since Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak

15:38 - Keeping Agency Folks In Same Roles/Locations Would Help Collaborative Efforts

16:44 - Guild Partnership With The Forest Service

19:27 - Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire Aftermath And Community Perception of Prescribed Fire

23:57 - Zander's Recommendations For Other Fire Prone Communities

26:12 - Santa Clara Pueblo Takeaways

28:00 - Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) Should Include Post Fire Element

30:20 - Preplanning For Post Fire Impacts and Things To Consider In Pre Planning

37:14 - Encouraging People To Go Back Outside After Experiencing Fire Trauma

39:05 - The Santa Fe Fireshed and Using Watershed Concerns to Frame Management Practices

44:24 - Implementation Takes Community Engagement!

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 working in fire in his third season on a BLM handcrew out of eastern Oregon. In this episode, he spoke to some of his challenges and triumphs in pursuing wildland firefighting, and spoke especially to the role his father had in inspiring him to pursue this job. 

We appreciate both AWE's and Mystery Ranch's commitment to sharing the experiences of those working on the fireline, especially those from communities often underrepresented in content/media around wildland fire. This episode is the first of two that center the operational experiences of folks whose perspectives are not well represented in wildfire media. 

Need a gift for the outdoorsperson in your life? For mountain bikers, day hikers, travelers and festival lovers, I recommend the MR Hip Monkey.  It's almost too spacious—I always end up packing way more in it than I end up needing, but you never know when you're gonna need an extra layer or that second bag of gummy bears. 

For folks who love a good overnight ski trip, I can't recommend the Gallatin Peak 40 Liter pack enough. I've used this pack for everything from hut trips in the winter to traveling through Europe this fall to backpacking to alpine lakes in the summer. For those who don't have a ton of space to have a bag for every activity in their life, the Gallatin Peak checks multiple boxes and is a wonderfully multipurpose pack that can keep your life simple. Who needs four bags when you really just need this one!?

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 Network has a new website that is a veritable clearinghouse of good fire resources, knowledge and information on how to get involved—I highly recommend you go check it out!

New Fire Networks Website!!

Marek has quite a background of working in good fire implementation and policy, and recently represented 501 c3 organizations with expertise in forest management and environmental conservation on the Wildfire Commission which released its report and recommendations back in September.

In his role with the Nature Conservancy, Marek works to, quite simply, bring fire to the people while leading an organization that prioritizes our collective relationship with fire. All of TNC's programming through the Fire Networks is focused on developing more avenues for people to connect with fire, whether by exchanging knowledge/training,  sharing resources or empowering individuals and communities to build resilience to or change their relationships with fire.

We covered some ground with this one—not only about his role in the Wildfire Commission, but also his work with the Fire Networks, Amanda's experience at her first TREX back in October, and the future of the Fire Networks. This was such a fun conversation that was a long time coming, and we were left feeling like we could have talked to Marek for much, much longer than we did! Maybe a part two is in order....

Don't forget to check out the Fire Networks' new website!

You can also learn more about the new partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the Forest Service here. 

Looking for Christmas gifts for the outdoorsperson/backpacker/firefighter/hunter/skier in your life? Well boy howdy you should probably check out Mystery Ranch's selection of packs, made for every hobby you could possibly need a pack for.

I'm a huge fan of Mystery Ranch packs and am an especially big fan of their Saddle Peak ski pack and their Hip Monkey pack, which is a glorified fanny pack that is durable as hell and has SO MUCH SPACE. I use it for long days on my mountain bike, and also recently used it basically as a purse during a three-week trip backpacking around Italy. 

Timestamps:

03:55 - Episode Introduction

05:57 - Process For The Wildfire Commission

08:02 - Themes In Marek's Work

09:29 - Work Groups Within The Commission 

10:02 - Marek's Current Action Items

10:52 - Collaborative Approach To Recommendations 

12:11 - An All-Society Approach

13:02 - Multi-Year Funding

13:58 - Community Wildfire Defense Grants

15:21 - Wildfire Adaptation PODs

17:13 - Focus On What Is In Reach

18:14 - Community Level Practitioners

19:00 - The Fire Networks Partnership

21:24 - The Indigenous Peoples Burning Network

22:37 - Proactive Community Building

23:47 - Amanda's Experience On TREX

24:56 - The PIO Position

25:48 - Current Happenings At Nature Conservancy

27:21 - Indigenous TREX Experiences

28:41 - Women In Prescribed Fire Training

30:09 - How To Get Involved

31:04 - Ongoing Efforts

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 of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighter organization and a longtime wildland firefighter. We had the chance to chat with Kelly about the commission, and she was able to provide us a glimpse into the process and efforts behind their whopping 340-page report. We spoke explicitly about how the recommendations relate to wildland firefighters, as well as what Kelly was able to bring to the commission with her extensive background working in wildland fire operations.

We're hoping to release a few more episodes about the commission report, which will focus on other recommendations and themes—including community resilience/adaptation, Indigenous burning and scaling up projects that reduce wildfire risk. Stay tuned!

Kelly is an outspoke advocate for wildland firefighters through her work at Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, which you should definitely check out if you haven't already. 

This episode is brought to you by Mystery Ranch, which makes the best fire pack in the business--we will die on this hill! If you're looking for a fire pack (or a backpacking pack, or a briefcase, or a hunting pack, or a...well you get it), then Mystery Ranch is the place to go. You'll probably never have to buy a pack again!

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 landscape. We spoke about a whole lot more than that, though; we heard about Dr. Adams' PhD work at UC-Davis, about her new assistant professor position at the University of Kansas, about "rematriating" fire (bringing  women back into cultural fire decision making) and generally bringing more humility into the use of fire. We also spoke at length about her recent paper titled "Solastalgia to Soliphilia: Cultural Fire, Climate Change, and Indigenous Healing," which she co-authored with Erica Tom and Chairman Ron Goode of the North Fork Mono Tribe (who coined the term "Traditional Ecological Practices").

A bit more about Melinda: As a fire scholar, Dr. Adams concentrates on encouraging public participation in prescribed and controlled burns, getting more people fire certified, and placing more Indigenous-led cultural fire to the ground with allies, agencies, and Tribal members— “decolonizing fire” as she describes. She holds a Bachelor of Science from Haskell Indian Nations University (one of thirty-seven tribal colleges located across the United States), her Master of Science from Purdue University, and PhD from the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the intersection of ecology, environmental science, environmental policy and Native American studies; through her research and work, she envisions a future where cultural fire is used as a climate adaptation strategy while mitigating the frequency and intensity of catastrophic wildfire.

This is an important episode for those interested in Indigenous knowledge, understanding and practice of land stewardship—including the use of fire—but is absolutely essential for anyone who works in an agency or organization that emphasizes the importance of TEK, and especially for those who recognize a need for a different and more humble approach to fire and active stewardship.  

Beyond that, if you're looking for an antidote to your climate grief, look no further than this conversation with Melinda. Her energy for the work is incredible, and is bolstered by countless other Indigenous practitioners and allies who envision a more sustainable, Indigenous-led, community-based future of land stewardship and fire use. 

Timestamps: 

07:17 - Introduction

09:42 - Fire in Tribe's Cultural Stories

10:35 - Soliphilia

12:32 - California and Tribal Recognition

15:19 - Healing Powers of Cultural Fire

17:34 - State Agencies Invited to Cultural Fire Demos

18:37 - Wildfires and A Lack of Relationship with the Land

21:20 - Community Education

23:30 - Generational Protocol and Practices

24:46 - Traditional Ecological Practices

27:25 - Melinda's Teaching and Her Students' Focus

31:50 - The Humble Fire Approach

34:12 - Learn Homeland History Where You Burn

36:15 - Caring for the Place You Live

38:28 - Collaboration with Different Tribes

39:31 - Storytelling to Translate Scientific Findings

44:02 - Final Thoughts from Melinda

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 how we approach them on this subject.

The ways we talk about wildfire are often highly localized—and dependent on a number of factors like community values, history and available resources. However, the things that make for successful risk communication are largely universal, with mutual respect being chief among the elements of successful communication. This is a primary point of Isabeau's: that when we are talking to community members about wildfire or other climate risks, embracing a two-way communication approach (rather than top-down, as she calls it) is essential. In other words, ensuring that you're actually listening to the community you're attempting to communicate with.

Isabeau is also a current member of PyroLife, which is a PhD training program that supports students across the globe to pursue cross-disciplinary, wildfire-focused research projects. She recently published a paper called "A toolkit for fostering co-creation and participative community engagement with vulnerable communities at risk," where she expands on many of the topics we cover in this episode—we'd highly recommend giving it a read. 

If you're interested in learning more about our open call for pitches, check out our blog post about it!

If you'd like to help us meet our objective to support Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and other creators from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by wildfires, please check out our Patreon.

Timestamps: 

05:36 - Introduction

06:51 - Interest in Wildfires

09:05 - Community Collaboration Over Expert Dictation

10:36 - Community Experience as Starting Point

11:35 - Limitations of Wildfire Communication

15:07 - Spain vs. US Wildfire Management and Communications

17:43 - Communication as Top Priority

18:23 - Leveraging Social Media Platforms

19:38 - Tips for the Upcoming Wildfire Season

23:09 - Future of Wildfire Prevention Gaps

24:50 - Complexity of Wildfire Management

Produced by Morgan McRae

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 spoke about expanding capacity for (and acceptance of) local burning in MARS' backyard—primarily through private lands burning and engaging community members through contractual opportunities and the Stewardship Crew itself. They also spoke about the Washington State Certified Burn Manager Program, engaging recreationists in the act of fuel reduction and land stewardship and a number of other topics, as well as what the stewardship crew has been up to this spring and summer. 

Speaking of expanding capacity for prescribed burning in Washington State—have you heard about the two TREX events taking place in Washington this fall? The Selkirk and Gorge TREX events are accepting applications for a few more days (July 17th is the deadline), so if you're available and interested, be sure to apply asap!

05:52 - MARS' Approach to Non-Intimidating Fires

08:18 - Role Model Programs for MARS' Startup

10:14 - Private Landowners Burning with Crews

13:14 - Education in the MARS Program

16:09 - Washington State's Prescribed Burn Manager Course

19:29 - Engaging Rural Communities in Fire Mitigation

21:50 - Fostering Collaboration Among Property Owners

23:08 - Lucas' Background Story

25:26 - Spring Job Opportunities at MARS

27:01 - Current Status of Wildfire Proactivity

Produced by Morgan McRae

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 himself that question for years, today's guest Luke Mayfield finally got his answer in 2019, when he left his job as a hotshot captain to see what life outside of operational fire was all about. He now works as the fire program director at Mystery Ranch Backpacks, and is still very much involved the fire community—both through his policy work at Grassroots Wildland Firefighters and as an emergency fill-in for hotshot crews for the last four summers. He's also spent some time this spring talking to hotshot crews about mental health and general wellness during the fire season, which are topics that he's well-versed in after 18 years in fire.

This episode isn't just for the firefighters out there, though. It's increasingly important that folks outside of the fire community better understand the challenges firefighters are facing, and take advantage of advocacy opportunities at the state and federal level. Much of those opportunities for advocacy, in fact, are rooted in Luke's work with Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.

Luke was a founding member of Grassroots back in 2019 after recognizing a need for more lobbying power/legislative presence on the part of the wildland fire community, which had historically been left out of the conversation at the policy level and, thus, often in the media and greater public consciousness. If you're looking for a way to support the wildland firefighters in your life or community, supporting the work of Grassroots is a great place to start.

Huge thanks to Luke for coming on the show, and an equally huge thanks to Mystery Ranch Backpacks for supporting Life with Fire over the years. We have a fancy new affiliate link program with MR and thought we'd highlight their man purse (aka Murse), which is like the Bugatti of man-purses: https://bit.ly/42CyyN6 

TW:  Mental health challenges and suicidal ideation are discussed briefly in this episode. 

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 gamut from the forest resilience measures she's taken while in office, to the All Hands All Lands approach to fuels reduction, to her vision for a more fire-adapted Washington. Life with Fire is based in Bellingham, WA—an admittedly wet place to host a wildfire podcast—so we also spoke a bit about the changing conditions in the west Cascades and how her office is hoping to bring more wildfire awareness to the westside. 

You can support the Life with Fire Patreon if you dig what we're doing, or maybe write us a review or follow us on social media (@lifewithfirepod). 

If you're looking for a new pack (especially a fire pack!), be sure to go check out Mystery Ranch's wide range of fantastic packs for any activity you partake in: https://www.avantlink.com/click.php?tool_type=cl&merchant_id=dd2bb191-351c-479c-9877-7efa128a6335&website_id=d8132395-0578-4694-9ba8-65dc5a6ef74a&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mysteryranch.com%2F