Life with Fire

• After The Fire with Collin Haffey

  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 NetworkTimestamps: 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 Fire12:41 - Good examples of post-fire response 14:25 - Need someone to direct post-fire tasks16:14 - Is the only way to learn about recovery through experience? 16:52 - Suppression vs. recovery teams—a need for both18:39 - The importance of community recovery collaboratives 21:00 - Developing a CWPP 24:35 - Overthinking CWPP documents26:35 - Common post-Fire challenges 29:02 - Managing mental & emotional trauma (both community and practitioner) during the post-fire period33:12 - How community and resident relationships to the land change after wildfires32:33 - Fostering a love of place after (and despite) wildfire35:03 - Getting community involved in post-fire preparedness36:43 - Disconnect between FEMA & local organizations 38:36 - What does a community that is well-prepared for post fire challenges look like?

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• How the Loss of Federal Workers Will Have A Massive Impact on Fire Operations This Fire Season, With Riva Duncan

  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. Riva is vice president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, which advocates and provides a voice for the wildfire workforce. Consider donating to support their work! 

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• Fire in the Southwest Ep. 6: The Ebb and Flow of Public Trust Around Prescribed Fire, with New Mexico State Forester Lindsey Quam

  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 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.If you'd like to learn more about acequias, which are mentioned in this episode, I can't recommend Patrick Lohmann's reporting enough. He is a journalist with Source NM and did some stellar reporting on the impacts of the Calf Canyon Hermits Peak Fire on acequias and traditional (and often rural) communities in northern New Mexico. 

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• Fire in the Southwest Ep. 5: Using Wildfire To Build Resilience at the Landscape Scale, with Dr. Jose (Pepe) Iniguez

  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.In short, managed fires are often lightning-caused wildfires that are determined to be burning in an area that is not likely to impact nearby communities, infrastructure, watersheds etc. As such, they are not managed with "full suppression" as the main priority. They are heavily monitored by ground resources (if the fire is accessible) and aircraft, though on occasion these fires become "wildfires for resource benefit" merely because there aren't enough resources to attend to them. See: the 2021 fire season in California. In many cases, these types of fires burn in wilderness areas where fire suppression can be extremely difficult because of a lack of access, and which is made all the more difficult by designations that disallow the use of things like chainsaws and helicopters. Want more information about managed fire? Check out this fact sheet from our sponsor for this episode, the Southwest Fire Science Consortium. This recent blog post from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network is also very much worth the read if you're hungry for more context around managed fire. This blog was  written by a recent guest of the podcast, Zander Evans from the Forest Stewards Guild. A huge thank you to both the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and the Arizona Wildfire Initiative for supporting this episode and all of the other episodes from our Fire in the Southwest Series. Timestamps: 00:00 - Episode Start 01:31 - Pepe's Background 07:56 - 1996 Fires11:04 - The Early Days Of Managed Fire 14:01 - Thinning Versus Fire, Thinning PLUS Fire16:00 - Prescribed Fire Scales As A Tool 17:40 - Pepe's View On Managed Fire 19:48 - Lessons Learned with Managed Fire22:24 - The Benefit of Starting Small in Building A Managed Fire Program 25:24 - Experimental Forests 28:27 - Hotshot Crews Work On the Long Valley Experimental Forest 30:47 - Smaller, More Local Incident Management Teams Often Work Better 32:56 - Social Implications Of Managed Fires 35:29 - Thoughts on Improving Public Perception of Managed Fires  38:30 - Prescribed Fire and Managed Fire Have Different Liabilities40:06 - Do We Need A Fire Influencer? Pepe suggests Britney Spears. 41:37 - The Work of the Southwest Fire Consortium 49:50 - Episode End

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• Pros, Cons and Misconceptions of Aerial Firefighting with Matt Lynde

  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.This episode of Life with Fire was created in conjunction with Region Five of the Forest Service, for a project that explores some of the common public misconceptions about aerial firefighting. The full Storymap can be found here. Timestamps: 00:00 - Episode Introduction05:07 - Matt's Introduction And Background 06:51 - Helicopter Coordinator Position Details08:38 - Matt's Initial Interest In Aviation 10:22 - Changes In Air Attack 12:19 -  Safety Procedures And Risk Factors of Aerial Firefighting14:45 - Misconceptions About Aircraft Firefighting17:36 - Benefits Of Helicopter Coordination18:53 - Fire Retardant Use—Benefits and Limitations20:14 - How Aircraft Supports Firefighters On The Ground 23:32 - Other Limitations To Fighting Fire With Aircraft 25:06 - What Factors Inform Availability of Aerial Support 28:02 - Lack Of Resources Problem 30:03 - Outro 

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