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PODCAST

Life with Fire

What are the benefits of prescribed burning? Why have wildfires gotten so severe lately? How can I help protect my home and community? Life With Fire podcast aims to answer these questions (and many others) while deepening our understanding of the critical role fire plays in America’s forests, lands and communities. Hosted by writer and former wildland firefighter Amanda Monthei, Life with Fire features interviews with everyone from scientists to fire management experts to Indigenous practitioners

science nature

All Episodes

00:31:01

How Wildfires Are Impacting Outdoor Recreation, with...

Life with Fire ·

2022/08/23

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 to expect from worsening wildfire seasons, while also talking about why it's important to remember

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00:47:00

Hotshot Crew to Grad School, with Harrison Raine

Life with Fire ·

2022/08/11

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 scored a fellowship that allowed him to travel the world to explore fire management practices in places like

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00:46:34

Underdiscussed, Poorly Understood: Prescribed Fire...

Life with Fire ·

2022/06/30

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 about those challenges and how people are working to solve them is critical to having a full understanding

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00:47:02

Indigenous-Led Fire Stewardship with Amy...

Life with Fire ·

2022/06/02

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 many others) for us in today's episode. On top of advocating for greater authority for First Nation

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00:43:05

How Can Fire Culture Become More Inclusive? with...

Life with Fire ·

2022/05/12

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 empowered and comfortable being herself, as well as the situations that made her question her desire to stick

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00:50:27

A Life Of Fire as a Trans Woman, with Bobbie Scopa

Life with Fire ·

2022/04/13

Bobbie Scopa has had quite a long and storied fire career—she recently retired after 45 years working in both wildland and municipal fire, during which she worked her way into the Chief position and into numerous leadership positions over her career with the Forest Service. Notably, she was present on the Dude Fire in 1990, where six firefighters were tragically killed, and even served at Ground Zero after 9/11.But Bobbie's story doesn't start and end with firefighting. She's also a trans woman, and

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00:37:43

Diversity in Fire with Jane Park (Part Two)

Life with Fire ·

2022/03/22

In the second half of our conversation with Jane Park, we spoke about some of the diversity initiatives that Jane has spearheaded within Banff National Park and Parks Canada as a whole. We also spoke about Jane's experiences of working in fire as a Korean-Canadian woman and type 1 incident commander, and why she thinks it's imperative to bring more people of color and women into the wildfire and prescribed fire spaces. Be sure to check out our first episode with Jane, which covers prescribed fire

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00:31:56

Prescribed Fire Management in Banff National Park...

Life with Fire ·

2022/03/14

In our second episode of the Women in Wildfire series, we brought on Banff National Park Fire and Vegetation Management Specialist Jane Park, who on top of being a profound presence in the wildfire and prescribed fire management space is also, quite simply, really frickin cool (and very fun to chat with). Jane is a Korean-Canadian woman and a type one incident commander; she has also played a huge role in building more diversity within the Canada Parks system, and has notable on-the-ground

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00:23:44

From Fashion Week to the Fireline with Celilo Miles

Life with Fire ·

2022/03/08

There's a chance you've seen Nez Perce wildland firefighter and model Celilo Miles in a recent advertisement for Victoria's Secret—in it, she wears Nomex pants and holds her hard hat, emblazoned with the Nez Perce Tribe's fire management program logo. After seeing the ad making the rounds in the wildland fire community, we tracked Celilo down to chat about her background as both a wildland firefighter and a model and how her appearance in the VS advertisement came about. She spoke about balancing

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00:33:41

Creating Connections Through Community Forests with...

Life with Fire ·

2022/03/01

The Mt. Adams Resource Stewards in Washington State is an excellent example of a hyper-local solution to community fire resilience. Started in 2004 by this week's guest, Jay McLaughlin, the organization now boasts a community forest, a 10-person stewardship crew, community development programs and fire adaptation resources for nearby communities.Jay has a deep pool of experience in engaging rural (often former logging) communities in fire resilience and more progressive land management; in today's

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00:29:26

Michael Wara Part 2: Sustainability of the...

Life with Fire ·

2022/02/17

In the second half of their conversation, Michael Wara and Amanda briefly dive into the nitty gritty of liability regimes as they relate to both wildland and prescribed fires, how smoke will continue to impact communities across the West and finally, how the current suppression workforce structure is not a practical means of moving into a more fire-adapted future.Of course, a suppression workforce will always be important, but Michael considers the abysmal work-life balance of the current wildland

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00:32:12

The Reality of Burning 50 Million Acres in 10 Years...

Life with Fire ·

2022/02/01

President Biden recently rolled out a plan to treat 50 million acres of land with fire over the next 10 years. The question is—is 50 million acres actually realistic with the system we have in place right now? We spoke with environmental law and policy expert Michael Wara about the logistics of actually putting that much fire on the ground to reduce risk in vulnerable communities, how we may not be in a place to scale it to that level yet, and what we can do to get to the necessary level of fuels

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00:21:49

The Tim Hart Act and Channeling Grief with Michelle Hart

Life with Fire ·

2022/01/19

When smokejumper Tim Hart died from injuries sustained during a hard landing in New Mexico in May, his wife Michelle Hart quickly realized that she needed a way to channel her grief. She also realized she was in a unique position to draw attention to the needs of wildland firefighters—she had a personal connection to the issues facing them, and as a lobbyist, she also had the legislative chops to make legitimate change at a congressional level. This all culminated in the creation of the Tim Hart

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00:57:08

Climate Change Impacts on High Severity, Low...

Life with Fire ·

2022/01/07

We covered such a broad range of subjects with guest Phil Higuera in this episode that it was hard to nail down a title. Nonetheless, Phil's expansive research background lended well to a conversation that covered paleoecology, how lake sediment is used to determine events that happened 13,000 years ago, how forests are changing with a warming climate and how we humans can choose to respond to those changes. Our main objective with the conversation was to discuss Phil's research in Western

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00:46:32

Four Decades of Fire, with Sue Husari (and Guest Host...

Life with Fire ·

2021/11/30

This episode's guest, Sue Husari, went from pounding dirt as the first woman to work for the Lassen Hotshots in 1976 to an eventual role as the Fire Management Officer for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service, from which she retired in 2012. In between, she saw fundamental changes not only in how fires burn but in how we fight them. She provides some truly invaluable perspective in this episode, which is guest hosted by our friend Zeke Lunder from The Lookout, an online project that

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00:32:23

What The Infrastructure Bill Means for Wildland...

Life with Fire ·

2021/11/16

How will the infrastructure bill impact wildland firefighting and our overall fire resilience? We spoke with Riva Duncan—who is the executive secretary of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighter Coalition—about the bill and its implications for the wildland fire workforce. In addition to providing some greater understanding of the bill and its provisions, Riva also answers a few of the most common questions she's been getting about the legislation. More information about the Grassroots Wildland

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00:38:13

Homes as Fuel with Zeke Lunder, Yana Valochovic and...

Life with Fire ·

2021/11/15

Our first guest-hosted (an in-person) episode is live! In this episode, Zeke Lunder of "The Lookout" cameos as host of Life with Fire, and sits down with fire researchers Yana Valochovic and Eric Knapp at his office in Chico, CA. They spoke about Valochovic and Knapp's research on the Camp Fire, which deeply impacted the town of Paradise, CA three years ago this week. Their research explores how homes are arranged and built, and how these factors can impact their susceptibility to ignition during

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00:47:42

All Things Cultural Burning with Karuk Tribal Member...

Life with Fire ·

2021/11/08

In this episode, we explore one of the topics that is most requested by Life with Fire listeners—cultural burning. We spoke with Karuk tribal member Bill Tripp about his early experiences of cultural burning, and how those experiences reflect in his current work as Director of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy for the Karuk Tribe. We spoke at length about California's Senate Bill 332 (which was signed into law by Gavin Newsom just after Bill and I spoke back in September) and how it would

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00:26:01

Building a Community of Land Stewards, With Sasha...

Life with Fire ·

2021/09/03

In this episode we speak with Sasha Berleman, who has a whole lot of irons in the...prescribed fire? Sasha has a doctorate from UC Berkeley, is the founder and director of the Fire Forward Program through Audubon Canyon Ranch, is a founding member of the Bay Area Prescribed Fire Council and much, much more. Oh, and a former hotshot. We've wanted to get Sasha on the show for a while now, and we were excited to talk about her community work and dedication of building up land stewards, regardless of

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00:17:44

Scientists Respond to the New "All Fires Out," Forest...

Life with Fire ·

2021/08/23

In this episode, we explore the new Forest Service directive requiring all new fire starts to be suppressed immediately. Fire scientist Matt Hurteau is our guide on this journey, as he discusses the directive itself, as well as the precedent it sets and its widespread criticism. He and dozens of other fire scientists voiced these criticisms in a letter to Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, which can be found here: http://www.hurteaulab.org/.../chief_moore_letter... To follow Life with Fire, check out

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