Life with Fire

In a special bonus episode of our recreation X wildfire series sponsored by Protect Our Winters, we spoke with professional skier Cody Townsend about what it's like to live in North Lake Tahoe as the threat of wildfire (or smoke) in that area seems to increase exponentially every fire season, as well as what kind of advocacy work he suggests for listeners who don't know where to get started in the climate or advocacy space.

And we know what you might be thinking right now: A professional skier? On a wildfire podcast?

You betcha, and for good reason—Cody hasn't just been an outspoken advocate for better climate policy and the politicians that support them, but has also experienced the community impacts of wildfire first hand, whether through air quality, forest and trail closures, figuring out what to put his family's go-bags or otherwise living with the near constant threat of wildfire and smoke. His experiences likely mirror those of many folks in California and beyond, and are particularly pertinent now as the Mosquito Fire continues to burn intensely—blanketing much of the Tahoe and Reno areas in dense smoke.

You can learn more our sponsor, Protect our Winters, and their Stoke the Vote campaign—which encourages the outdoor community to do their research, register to vote and make their voices heard ahead of this fall's midterms. Learn more about the campaign and POW's other work here.

To support Life with Fire, follow us on Instagram and Twitter; you can also support us/help pay the bills (and our host's burgeoning addiction to iced lattes) by donating to our Patreon.

Song featured in POW ad: The Times They Are A Changin' by Goth Babe

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.

Mary was preparing for a public meeting the day of our conversation and had a few great slides that she showed me during our conversation, so I've uploaded the full video of our conversation to Youtube for folks who would like some more context for the topics we discussed in the podcast.

This episode and our entire series on Fire in the Southwest was made possible with support from The Southwest Fire Science Consortium and the Arizona Wildfire Initiative.

Timstamps:

01:11 - Introduction

05:42 - Mary's Background and Career

10:04 - Four Forest Restoration Initiative

13:05 - Growing up Near Badlands National Park

15:33 - Different Ecosystems and Fire Regimes of the Southwest

17:19 - The Sonoran Desert

19:39 - Witnessing Desert Conversion Over Time

20:14 - Should Human-Caused Ignitions Be Part Of A Fire Regime?

22:05 - Lightning Caused Fires Versus Human Caused Fire

23:52 - Mary's Love of Nebraska

27:01 - Grasslands In The Great Plains

30:36 - Current Restoration Work and Climate Change Impacts on Southwest Fire Regimes

34:11 - What is Assisted Migration and Can It Help The Southwest?

38:04 - The Changing Role Of Disturbance In Grassland Systems

39:24 - Grassification of the Sonoran Desert.

45:13 - Outro

In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Jessica McCarty—the branch chief for the Biospheric Sciences branch at NASA's Ames Research Center—about her career, her work on fire in boreal and arctic ecosystems (within the context of the Canadian wildfires last summer), her perspectives on fire technology (spoiler: she's a big fan of predictive modeling) and so many other topics that we 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.

Quick note that this episode was recorded in August 2023, so there are a few things we spoke about that are maybe not exactly timely right now, but are nonetheless relevant to the ongoing conversation about wildfire resilience (for example, the tragedy in Lahaina and the, at that time, still ongoing fire season in Canada).

To learn more about Dr. McCarty's background and research, check out her full NASA bio page.

07:42 - Wildfire and Different Plant Species

09:05 - What Satellites Can and Cannot Tell Us

10:49 - The Lahaina Tragedy—Response, Fire/Management History on Maui

13:41 - Preparing To Deal With Fire and Building Resilience At Scale

17:06 - Invest In Being Good Neighbors

19:22 - Landscaping Choices as They Relate To Wildfire

20:43 - How We Can Thrive With Fire

22:41 - Why We Need More Prescribed Fire

24:49 - The Energy Grid As A Fire Risk

25:44 - New Emergency Notification System/Emergency Management Perspectives

27:59 - Agency Scientists Are Underutilized

30:12 - Emergency Management/Response and How It Can Save Lives

31:45 - Fire: Everybody's Problem, Everybody's Solution

33:08 - Fire Regimes in Boreal Forests

36:33 - Extreme Fire Year In Canada

38:28 -The Realities of Wildfire Evacuations

40:25 - The Arctic Council

44:43 - Closing

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 at a community and landscape scale, 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. This fire burned over 340,000 acres in largely rural areas that were also, subsequently, impacted by intense debris flows and mudslides, spurred by monsoonal rain events only weeks after the fire burned through the area. These debris flows were in many cases more devastating to residents in these areas than the fires themselves—they destroyed wells and water systems, devastated roads and other infrastructure and destroyed hundreds of homes, including century-old adobe homes that had housed multiple generations of native New Mexicans. If you're interested in learning more about the HP-CC Fire, I highly recommend the in-depth reporting of Patrick Lohmann at Source NM. I also wrote about the post-fire impacts of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon, as well as potential policy solutions, for Land Lines Magazine back in 2023.

For some background: post-fire concerns range from erosion and flooding events that can have major impacts on infrastructure and watersheds (and systems), but also includes the process of reforestation, erosion reduction and reducing the incursion and spread of invasive species in delicate post-fire landscapes.

How communities prepare and plan for these challenges can make an immense difference in how quickly they recover, and Collin's work focuses heavily on encouraging communities to better prepare not just for wildfire, but for what comes after it.

One of Collin's biggest projects at present is the After the Fire Washington website, where you can find tried-and-true recovery practices, resources for landowners, community members and community leaders, case studies and other information.

Finally, if you'd like to read a bit more about Collin's experiences and insights gained from seeing the HP-CC Fire impacts first hand, check out this great blog post he wrote for the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network: Stuck in the Mud: Gaps in Post-Fire Recovery Programs - Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network

Timestamps:

00:00 - Episode Start

00:38 - Amanda Monthei Intro

06:54 - Start of conversation—Collin's background

08:17 - Gaps In post-fire conversation, preparedness and planning

09:57 - Lessons From Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire

12:41 - Good examples of post-fire response

14:25 - Need someone to direct post-fire tasks

16:14 - Is the only way to learn about recovery through experience?

16:52 - Suppression vs. recovery teams—a need for both

18:39 - The importance of community recovery collaboratives

21:00 - Developing a CWPP

24:35 - Overthinking CWPP documents

26:35 - Common post-Fire challenges

29:02 - Managing mental & emotional trauma (both community and practitioner) during the post-fire period

33:12 - How community and resident relationships to the land change after wildfires

32:33 - Fostering a love of place after (and despite) wildfire

35:03 - Getting community involved in post-fire preparedness

36:43 - Disconnect between FEMA & local organizations

38:36 - What does a community that is well-prepared for post fire challenges look like?

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.

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