Fire Ecology (WILDFIRES & INDIGENOUS FIRE MANAGEMENT) Mega Encore with Gavin Jones & Amy Christianson (LA Fires Re-Release)

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eating fire near Pasadena. And this week I've been in Las Vega this last few days on a business shrip, and I've been like up all night, feverishly refreshing. The watch Duty app for updates on the fire spread. Meanwhile, my husband, Jarrett, your pod mother, has been like packing up our passports and our birth certificates and our baby, who's a twelve year old dog, and he's been staying with friends here and there until the winds died down a little bit. But we're back home and most of

our neighbors on our street have evacuated. The air is very heavy with smoke from like a thousand or so homes a few miles away that were lost in Altadena. I haven't slept much at all the last couple of days, and the winds are picking back up tonight, and at press time there's zero percite containment on the nearby to us eating fire. And then the Pacific Palisades fire is barely contained and it's growing, and fires are starting and

smoldering all over La. I have a nasty smoke headache, and so I'm giving you this very relevant encore.

show notes for this episode. But in case you can't stay indoors hopefully with an aeror filter running, we thought we'd highlight what the CDC has to say about masks. Quote, don't rely on dust masks for protection. Paper comfort or dust masks commonly found in hardware stores trap large particles such as sawdust, but these masks will not protect to

you or your lungs from smoke. So an N ninety five mask properly worn will offer some protection, So bust out those N ninety fives if you are somewhere with smoke right now. Also, speaking of health, another reason why I'm running this mega episode is I've been dealing with some health stuff and I will talk about it in this mega secret at the end of this mega episode.

If you care, if you make it all the way there, but take care of yourselves and please enjoy this mega encore double feature of fire ecology and Indigenous fire ecology. Hem Oh hey, it's the pair of sunglasses that you leave in the car that's scratched. It's not your favorite, but it's better than nothing. In a pitch ali ward back with a piping hot episode of ologies. It's top of mind for a lot of us out here up here in the Northern Hemisphere, especially toward the west of

the continent. Wildfires, fire ecology, blazing infurnos, apocalyptic nightmares. This ologist so special got his bachelor's in zoology, a master's in wildlife ecology, and a PhD in Wildlife ecology Statistics, all from the University of Wisconsin and Madison. He is currently a Wildlife and Terrestrial Ecosystems research ecologist. Such a mouthful. He's a research scientist at the US Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, also an adjunct professor at the University of

New Mexico. He has been published on papers about fire refuges for wildlife, where they hide out, megafires, habitat loss. He's also just casually the editor at the Association of Fire Ecology, so I've been following him online for a while. I reached out to casually ask him about pyrology versus fire ecology, and before I knew it, I was begging him to talk to me. So we hopped onto chat while fires were raging in the West this week and I was in a muggy Florida hotel room for work

and it smelled like a turtle tank. But before we dive into the conversation, I want to thank everyone at patreon dot com slash Ologies. It costs a dollar a month to join and then you can submit questions to theologists. Thank you to everyone listening and making us the number one podcast in the science category on Spotify, And thank you for leaving reviews on Apple Podcasts to get us

seen by other people. I truly read them all because I desperately want to make a show that does not suck, and to prove it, I'm going to read you a still glowing coal of assessment from Bert Lancaster, who wrote Ologies is your cynicism Antidote. I simultaneously feel beautifully tiny and so expansive that I could burst after listening. Sometimes I just have to stand there and laugh to myself

for a while. Sometimes I cry. Emotions are weird. Love you dad word, Bert Lancaster, get a hanky, because your internet dad right here loves you right back. Okay, everyone who left to review, I read it I love you also, Okay,

all right, let's fire off some questions. Yeah, okay, open your ears for info on what fire is, how hot it burns, fire trends, tinderboxes, lots and lots of forest fire, flimflam, tolerant wombats, Angelina Joe Lee, movies, cunning pine cones, thick bark, tragic koalas, indigenous fire stewardship, and more with researcher scientists of the woods, does dweller, al cuddler, forest service employee, optimist and fire ecologist doctor Gavin Jones.

California spotted owl. And yeah, like pretty much anybody who spends enough time doing science out in fire prone lands like the Sierra Nevada, you eventually become a fire ecologist because of fire happens and then you have to try to figure out what to do with it. So that's

exactly what happened. I was doing my master's degree. I was at the University of Wisconsin with my supervisor, Zach Peery, and we were doing a study out in California on spotted owls, trying to figure out forests they used how they would respond to climate change. And just as I was finishing my master's degree, like just a month or two before I had defended my degree, a big fire burned through our study area.

And so, you know, in ecology, when we're doing these field studies, we rarely get the chance to do experiments. Like almost everything we do is observational. We go out and see what we see, and we record it and we try to make sense of it. We rarely get to do experiments like you know other folks get to do in the lab who are doing chemistry or their molecular things. But this was really a natural experiment to

see how this species of owl responded to fire. And that's what launched me into, I guess, being a real sucker for fire and for learning about how it works in some of these systems, why it happens, how it happens, what its consequences are. And I'm totally hooked now.

get out of the way. And then there's large parts of the fire that didn't burn so severely that burned at lower severity, where basically a lot of the trees that the big trees in the canopy, they kind of you know, they survived, and some of the understory burned a little bit more of a what we call quote unquote good fire in some of these areas, which I'd love to talk more about, but you know, a lot of those birds did great and are still persisting in

some of those areas that experienced lower severity fire, those lower severity effects to the.

blazes that were just starting to take off. I'm not sure how their relationship turned out, but as proof that we're living in a simulation the burn area, the burn Scar is absolutely shaped like a perfect ninety seven thousand acre dick and balls all ablaze in one of the state's most infamous literal thirst traps. Okay, so how much is our horny, greedy species to blame?

like that. It's the same thing in forests, they go in and do prescribed burns. And then there's also a really important component of cultural burning, So indigenous communities using wildfire for their purposes, which until you know, about one hundred two hundred years ago, made up the overwhelming majority of the fire activity that was happening in a lot

of these areas. For you know, the last ten thousand years or so, indigenous peoples have been using fire in a really important cultural way, and that has really changed in the past couple of centuries with colonization, but that is an increasingly important part of the solution to sort of this modern wildfire problem.

You know, fires create more resilient forests when they burn the right way. When we have sort of a natural kind of lower intensity fire in some systems, like in the Sierra Nevada where I've spent a lot of my time, that reinforces healthy water supplies, It reduces you know, erosion.

Mind Changing Understandings of Fire in Western Civilization. What, in which author Stephen J. Pron writes you ready for this quote. The Old Testament is in fact a cauldron of stories, rights, and beliefs simmering over a mix of religious fires. He goes on to say the heartland of European forestry new fire only as a human artifact, not a natural process. Most new and colonized lands were burned lands naturally, but

the agencies found themselves in a can continuous firefight. So fire became a political as well as practical challenge, he continues, the upshot has generally been disastrous. Okay, so what does the land miss out on when natural fire is suppressed and indigenous populations are fined, imprisoned, or even up until

the nineteen thirties in the US shot for fire stewardship. Well, from an ecology standpoint, those fires can help the water supply by eliminating excess vegetation and thus increasing runoff into streams, and by preventing huge fires with more frequent smaller ones. Also, erosion doesn't get out of control when there are regular fires,

like you see with post megafire mud slides. Also, the charcoal after a burn could trap carbon for millennia, and the recovery of vegetation takes more excess carbon from the atmosphere. According to the twenty nineteen paper how wildfires trap carbon for centuries to millennia. Okay, but wildfires burn at eight hundred degrees celsius. That's fourteen seventy two fahrenheit America. So the animals hate natural and cultural burns too, right, No

animal wants to be trapped in a blaze. But I'm just going to stop myself from singing about the circle of life in your ears.

high severity and low severity. You can kind of think about it as this patchwork, this mosaic of different ages of foreign that burned at different times, and that creates a really diverse landscape that generates the habitat for lots

of critters. It can be a really regenerative and restorative process to the land, both from a ecosystem perspective and also really you know, fire is a necessary part of these systems, and so when we can put the right kind of fire on the landscape, it really benefits us to as people and as society.

all consuming. They burn along in the understory, nice and happy, crawl along and burn some logs here, burn some trees there, but generally don't destroy or consume the big trees in the overstory of the canopy. So that first end of

the system, that's kind of frequent low severity fires. And then on the other end of the whole spectrum you can think about infrequent high severity fires or fire regimes rather, so these are places in that area is for fires when they do burn, to burn pretty big and pretty hot, and those are both natural, but they're natural in those

different places. And so why is it Why is it that you have some places that naturally burn low severity and generally I'm talking about forest fires here and then other places other forests that naturally burn it really high severity and really large. We can think about those two ends of the spectrum also in terms of what's limiting the system. So in these low severity fire systems, those

are generally systems that are limited by fuel. And so what I mean by that is the climate is such that on any given year, the conditions are right for fire, Like if there's a lightning strike or another ignition, fire is going to burn and the fuel is dry, and the only thing that's keeping that fire, one of the primary things that's controlling that fire and where it burns is where the fuel is, where the trees are, where

the kindling so to speak is. And because those fires, those places they ignite every year, there's ignitions all the time, and the conditions are right for fire, they burn really frequently. You can think about places where the fires burn every couple of years, and when they do burn, they kind of clean out or you know, burn in that understory. So sort of below the forest canopy. It's burning the smaller trees, it's burning some of the medium trees, and

it's burning some of the big trees. But mostly it just every time a fire burns, it burns all that fine fuel or a lot of it, right, And so that's the primary sort of control on how fire burns in some of these dry fuel limited systems.

It's too wet, and maybe it burns a small fire or something like that, but it just kind of extinguishes itself.

And you think about that system, those kind of areas, and when you end up getting those really big, infrequent severe fires that occur there, it's because there's been a some sort of climate activity, like a drought that's caused all that fuel that hasn't burned in a really long time to dry out and then it burns, and when it does burn, it burns really big because there's tons of fuel available, right, And so those are that's kind of the two ends of the spectrum. And you know,

I was trying to think about this today. How do I describe that that like spectrum in a way that's not so dry and academic. And I was thinking about, like, Okay, like the haircut that I get is like a frequent fire system. Okay. You know, I go to Great Clips or Sport Clips or whatever just down the street from me, and I get my haircut every few weeks, maybe every month. It's it kind of maintains the general structure. It never kind of goes super long, and I never buzz it

super short either. I just kind of keep it, you know, tamed, so to speak. You know, I go in there frequently, I clean out sort of the growth right, that's happened in between each cut. And on the other end of the spectrum, you could have somebody and I did this once when I was in college. I think you're right after college, you know, grow out your hair super duper long like I didn't. I didn't cut it for I

don't remember exactly how long it was. But let's say so you grow your hair for a year, five years or something, you know, get some pretty floppy, pretty pretty crazy hair, at least if you got hair like me, and then you say, I'm gonna buzz it, and so then you buzz it right off. That's kind of the I don't know, you can kind of kind of think

about that as the two ends of the spectrum. Right, You've got like your frequent haircut system, and you've got your infrequent, high severity haircut system, where you know, you just let it grow and then you cut it all off.

and is that like long main to buzz cut? Is that what a mega fire is? Then?

are giant in size. But you can have a really really large fire that doesn't necessarily create that forest buzz cut, right, It doesn't necessarily kill all the trees within its path. It may kill some trees in some parts, but not throughout the whole fire.

you know how much of the infrastructure it destroys. And there's a growing problem within the US, and particularly the western US, which right now, as you know, is experiencing quite a bit of fire activity. There's a lot more people living in that interface, what we call the wildland urban interface or the wui yeah WOOI.

to someplace that still has coffee shops. So more and more folks ditched the cities in the pandemic for these type of living situations and might be getting their very first tastes of PSPs, which are public safety power shutoffs when utility companies straight up cut power for a day, maybe a few weeks when winds are high in case otherwise live downed wires ignite the forest. Realators might not tell you about that until after you're done with escrow.

there doing this really dangerous work. And I'm relatively speaking, I'm a desk jockey compared to those people. So I spend a lot of my time here at the computer trying to take that data and learn from the fires and trying to understand how wildlife respond to those fires. That's what I do most of the time. This last year, COVID year, has definitely made things even more so away from the field. But boy, I love field work. I've

done quite a bit of it. I love getting out into those burned landscapes and trying to figure out what's going on.

come through. And so myself and some of my really outstanding colleagues, both back from when I was in grad school that I established during my PhD program, those collaborators back at University of Wisconsin, as well as some of my fantastic teammates here at the Rocky Mountain Research Station with the US Forest Service, We've done quite a bit of work trying to understand how this bird, this spotted owl,

responds to fires. We've gone out and spent quite a bit of time in these burned areas, capturing owls and putting GPS tags on them to see where they move in these burned areas, to see if they if they like them, or if they're using them. We literally go out into the woods and hoot at the alley. Dear, really, we really do. It's you walk into the woods where you think there's going to be an owl and you

just start hooting with your mouth. You just do it, and they hoot back because they're like, hey, who the heck is that?

It's a new abnormal, you know, we because we just it's really it's becoming really difficult to predict what's going to happen in the future because we don't have a reference point anymore. We're sort of just going into uncharted territory.

And so you know, when it comes to drought and climate change and things like that, Look, those are definitely a part of the equation in terms of what's going on with wildfire and what's going to happen, and particularly climate change and you know how that interacts with forests

and drives out fuels and things like that. Sometimes it's hard to just talk about drought and climate change for many reasons because it's hard as like a scientist who's interested in conservation, like, what can I do about that? I mean, you know, I don't I don't mean to sound like nihilistic, like, oh, we can't do anything, because

we can. We absolutely can. It's never too late to make actions on those big problems like climate change, right, But you know, I have the the honor to work for this agency, the US Forest Service, that is in charge of managing a ton of land, and so what can we do on the ground to make a difference in terms of how these fires burn, right, and you know, considering climate change like that plays a role, plays a really important role, and so does drought in terms of

driving some of these wildfire patterns that we've seen. But there's also something to be said for how forests are managed and how flammable forests are, and how we can potentially manage them in a way that tries to mitigate those worst effects of fire when they do come through. So it's really like you are going to hear people say, oh, you know, these fires are just because of climate change,

there's nothing we can do about it. And then you're going to hear people say, oh, climate change has nothing to do with it. It's we just need to manage forests differently. And the reality is it's neither of those. It's it's kind of both, right, It's both climate change and you know, the forest and the patterns of fuels across the landscape are affecting how fires burn. As a research scientist with the Forest Service, I'm thinking about how can I do

science that informs how we manage forests. And that's one of the coolest parts about my job is that I work for an agency that has a really strong management component, you know, a huge part of the agency as people out there doing this work, you know, managing forests, coming up with forest plans and management plans and fire plans, and I get to do science that helps them figure out how to do that, and we work together, you know,

in a collaborative way to figure that out. And that is where I think I like focusing on those solutions, right, How can we press the levers and make a difference from the ground.

But we have to remember indigenous people's have been burning for ten thousand years, and you know, we need more fire on the landscape, not less. It's just what kind of fire burns. This is kind of crazy to think about, but especially given you're looking at these maps. I've got the New York Times wildfire tracker open here. I got

another tracker on my desktop open as well. Like with all these big fires burning, you're thinking, like, man, there's just got to be so much more fire now than there ever was.

out right. All these ignitions would just burn, and vast areas of landscape would burn all the time, depending again on what kind of system you're in, right, So, these frequent fire systems would burn very frequently, you know, every couple of years you'd have fires kind of returning to the same areas. Then, when you know, settlers, white settlers colonized and pretty much disrupted indigenous burning and began actively suppressing wildfires, the amount of fire in the landscape just

dropped to you know, almost nothing. We were very effective at suppressing fires for a long time in the Western US, and basically what's happened is only recently have we sort of lost our handle on our ability to put out fires. The level of activity that we're seeing now is still far less than the level of fire activity that used

to burn. But the difference is that because in many of these forests, and particularly in the these frequent fire forests or these dry forest systems that used to burn really frequently, they haven't burned in a century or more, and so when they do burn, they burn really hot and really big, and that's not a natural kind of fire for this system. And also, you know, along with that, we have a lot more people again kind of living in those fire prone areas, and so we feel the

effects a lot more as well. As the population has increased, and so we still have way, way less fire activity on the landscape. It's just that these fires are typically burning in a way that is for those forests unnatural and for society really not acceptable. Right. The other crazy thing is that we actually have in some areas, particularly again these sort of historically frequent fire systems, we have a lot more trees too than we used to have. Oh yeah, which, like it goes right along with that

fire suppression. So we put out fires for one hundred years or more, and all those little shrubs and saplings that would have burned and those regular fires grew up to be big, you know, medium sized trees.

We have a lot more smaller trees and medium sized trees, and a lot fewer of those really giant old trees, which are really kind of an endangered species sort of in and of themselves, because over the past one hundred years or so, particularly pre nineteen eighties, there was quite a bit of large tree logging going all the way back to the early nineteen hundreds and late eighteen hundreds, so a lot of those big old trees were removed, a lot of those smaller trees grew up with that

fire suppression, and now we just have a ton of smaller trees on the landscape, and that again is kind of feeding back into why we have fires that are burning differently, because these fires are burning through, you know, these pretty thick, connected, like well connected forests that historically just didn't look like that at all.

side note. How indoor fire sprinklers work. They're not reliant on smoke, but on heat of over one hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit. So there's a little glass capsule in fire sprinklers and it's filled with glycerine and that heats up and bursts and opens the sprinkler valve. And apparently they open individually wherever its hottest, not all at once

like in the movies. I'm looking at you, lethal weapon for the Incredibles in Charlie's Angels and Mean Girls and Casino Royal and Kindergarten Cop and the Peanuts movie and all the other ones. And I'm going to link on my website because I found someone with a YouTube channel who is very pissed about the sprinkler myth. Anyway, heat seeds disperse, it's natural.

really remarkable adaptations that plants have to fire. And also increasingly we're trying to learn about animal adaptations to fire. Typically we think about these in terms of behavioral adaptations, so like, how do animals interact with their fire itself or the post fire landscape in a way that tells us a little bit about it, kind of opens the book on their evolution, how they evolved.

I followed her on Instagram. So some beautiful creatures are more well suited to some roles and environments.

The term pyrodiversity sort of emerged alongside this idea that pyro diversity gives rise to biodiversity. So basically that the more different kinds of fire that we have on the landscape, the more different kinds of severities, the different fire ages. Basically, the greater mixture of different types of fire characteristics that are in a landscape is going to lead to greater biodiversity,

which means more species. Basically, so you have more kinds of wildlife, more kinds of plants, et cetera, more kinds of bees, more kinds of bats, more kinds of birds, et cetera, because you have all sorts of different kinds of habitat for them that's been produced by fire.

we need a different kind of fire. We don't want to see more, you know, of the destructive fires that are out there. We want to see good fire. And what I mean by good fire is really kind of like this pyro diversity idea, where we have a really nice mixture of fire that kind of restores, It cleans out the understory in some places, it kills some trees,

It disrupts the system a little bit. You know, some disruption is good, and you create that really sort of wide ranging variety of habitats for different critters to live, and that also supports all sorts of other great things like water quantity and quality. It reduces a runoff. It reinforces the resilience of ecosystems and forests. So like fire is so good and it's like we want that good

kind of fire. It's really such a restorative thing. And it's just pyro diversity kind of encompasses this idea of like that beautiful mosaic on the landscape that is always changing. It's not just static, it's always changing, always being renewed. That's the idea of pyrodiversity.

Community found Nation. They have established a matching fund to assist all local communities impacted by the Dixie Fire, and all donations will be distributed to Plumous County agencies involved in directly assisting communities and individuals most affected by the fire. More info is up at common Goood Plumas dot org and that donation was made possible by sponsors of the show.

you know, if it's really severe or mild. So, for example, there's one species that some of my awesome colleagues have worked on. It's called the black backed woodpecker. Many people think of it as a poster child of severely burned forest because it really needs these patches of totally killed trees. It depends on the insects that live in those recently

killed trees. It needs those severely burned forests. Several years after those those fires burn and those trees are killed, it's no longer good habitat, Like it's really kind of this short term thing. They flock to these really severely burned places, they totally thrive, and then they are out of there and onto the next fire. So some critters

love that, others not so much so. The spotted at all, the species that I spent a lot of time studying, it is really kind of more of an old forest obligate. It doesn't love that severely burned stuff quite as much. So basically there are winners and losers. That's the answer is. It's never simple. It's never as simple as you make it. It's not just all animals are going to die or leave when a fire burns. Now, some of them are going to do rate and some of them are not.

That's like part of the beauty of studying this stuff is like trying to figure out why why do some animals love and some don't? The world is so complex and amazing it's like really fun to try to figure that out right. And then in terms of where animals go, some animals can escape fires, you know, fly out of the way, run out of the way. I always think of like Bamby, you know, a movie band, Like all

the animals are like parading out of the forest. I don't want to ruin Bamby for anybody, it's uh, but you know, some animals can evay fire, even you know, flying critters cannot always fly away from fast moving fires. Some animals will burrow under the ground and wait for the fire to pass and then come back out, which is totally crazy. You should yeah, it's it's nuts.

tortoises in the US. And to hear all about that, you can amble slowly over to the Testudonology episode with wonderful tortoise scientists Amanda Hips. Now what about rebel birds?

from that variety. Right. So, you know, if you have sort of your forest that was killed by trees next to a forest that is totally green and old and you know, decaying almost, we have this big mosaic of different kinds of forests that burn at different times. That's going to support all kinds of different critters. So it's it's it's a cool thing. Now, that's a good thing.

that's a big number. Yeah, and a lot of those you can go look this up. There's this a couple studies out there that have shown, you know, these gigantic spikes of fire activity on the fourth of July every year. Oh, Like, we absolutely play a role in ignitions. A very small percentage of all of the ignitions result in those really big, big fires. Of course, many of the fires that ignite don't burn everything up, but we absolutely as people can

be careful about how we burn. I think that smoking the Bear is just misunderstood, okay, you know, like because it's true. You know, we as people, like, we absolutely do start fires. We start unintended, unplanned fires that sometimes

result in really devastating circumstances. There's sort of this perception that all fire is bad among some people, and maybe I don't know, I don't know if smoking the bear is associated with that or not, but you know, all fire is not bad, Like fire is so important, and the reason why some fire is really bad right now and particularly is because we haven't had the kind of fire on the landscape that is natural in a lot of these systems.

when it's deemed to be safe. Right, So, especially in areas where there's not as many people and can you know, like kind of more wilderness type areas, because fires can do some of that work for us to restore the natural structure of a system. So fires can be really restorative, especially in those cases when we think it's going to burn in a quote unquote healthy way or a natural way and there aren't people who are in danger. So

that's kind of the idea of those managed wildfires. Just you know, when wildfire's burning, we're kind of trying to manage them as opposed to to just put them out or suppress them.

coincidences go, it's the greatest of all time. Okay, So this next smokey query was asked by plenty of folks, including patrons, Hannah Assi, Alana Wood, fire fighter supporter, Lousey Martinez, Charlie Cacamo, first time question asker Ashley Martinez, Nina Eve Seininger, asthmetic, Ada Smith, Joseph and Katie Coast. Let's see. Dylan maguire says, I live in eastern Washington where smoke has become the fifth season. When will we have the giant forest rakes mentioned by Donald Trump?

is like some blade runner or something. The problem with smoke is that you know it's gonna be there, It's going to happen if we're living in a in a system that has fire and that where we need to have fire, We're going to also have smoke. That's that's just a part of a part of it. Right where there's fire, there's smoke. The real important question is how do we want our smoke?

Just this past week or two there I saw people on Twitter, you know, out on the East Coast saying that they had, you know, they were getting some smoke from some of the wildfires in the West. That kind of unpredictable nature is I think for many people, not desirable, I say. And so the idea is if we can use more prescribed and planned fires, and more cultural and indigenous fires where we know when the smoke is coming,

it's a lower amount. It's like, you know, less smoke in general is come in our way at any given time. But maybe a little more often. You know, those are kind of the two options, right. We can either sort of have our smoke in big pulses when we don't know it's coming, or we can try to make it a little more predictable.

this you know ground. And basically these are these are like gigantic casts for trees, right like where the tree and its roots used to be. So fires can absolutely burn, you know, in a subterrein way. I've seen some of these sort of root holes following fire, which is just kind of wild to see.

to do. They just all left town except for five people who still live there. They're like, we're not going anywhere, Like that's cool, but yes, fires underground, flames, flames, breathing, heaving. Oh man, I didn't even know that was possible. I would not have thought that. That is bananas. Ugh of y'all patrons. Lizzie Mahr bush fire asker Brandy Harbaugh, first time question asker, longtime lurker Adriana Olfaro. Want to know what can we expect the normal amount of wildfires to be?

of his colleagues. They put out a study recently showing that between nineteen eighty five and twenty seventeen there was an eightfold increase in area that burned that high severity on an annual basis in the western US eight fold. So there is certainly a lot more large fires now, and there's also when those those fires are burning more severely now than they did thirty five or so years ago, thirty five forty years ago. But that's like the sort

of small scale context. But then if you zoom back out and look at sort of the whole context of the last several thousand years, we are seeing less fire now than we did way back when it's a different kind of fire that's burning, right, that's not necessarily natural

in some of these systems. And then also we are experiencing more of the effects of fire than we ever have as humans, and the negative effects because we're living in these fire prone areas where for a long time, it was somewhat safe to live, right, because fires weren't burning that much for the last hundred years in a lot of these areas because we're pretty good at putting

them out. But now that those fires are burning more severely and more intensely, and we're living there and we have the news to cover it all the time, Yeah, we certainly are hearing about it more, right, and it is having a serious impact on people as you know, you know, there's all sorts of really tragic stories of these fires burning through towns. And one of those towns just you know, the Dixie Fire, I believe, burned through Greenville, California in the last day or two. And that's an

incredibly tragic thing to have happened. And right, like we are, we are living in a world that's really different.

on the ground to go do prescribed burns. Kind of like not being able to go to bed because you have a paper due, but then you can't finish the paper because you're too tired. Something's got to change. Tune in next week for more on that. Now, on the topic of heavy hearts amid blazing wildfires, is there anything that is the most difficult thing about being a fire ecologist. I mean, I already the idea of like a charred owl leg is going to hurt my heart until the

day I die. But anything that is just really frustrating or difficult for you.

facing the same problems every year. But I think that there's there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light has to do with getting more of that good fire on the landscape. And that's something that I know is a priority for the agency. I work for the US four Service and trying to restore the

resiliency of these forests. And I think, like what I the sort of nugget of goodness that I try to take is that we, as you know, at least on my side, the science side of this agency, we have this incredible opportunity to learn about this, you know, about fires, why they burn, how they burn, what their consequences are, and what we can do about it. And we get to work with the managers and the people who are again out doing that stuff on the ground. We've got

our hands on some of the levers. We can make a positive impact, and we can make a change in you know, how these fires are burning even as we're thinking about you know, these bigger problems like climate change. We can put our fingers on the on the lever a little bit, and so there's a huge opportunity in the coming decades to make a big difference in sort of the next century of fire.

dry grass and things like that. You know, like there's there's little little things like that you can do. But this is a big problem and it takes both sort of individuals to make sure they're you know, not starting these these unplanned fires, but also these big sort of institutional actions and management to fight this problem. So it's you know, I would say, don't don't bite your nails down to the to the bone. Just make sure you're not the one who's starting that fire.

sixty million dollars to victims of the crime. So imagine what you could do with sixty million dollars and twenty years of your life. Yeah, think twice before doing any hornt up fire tumfoolery.

start digging into this stuff. So it's just such a wonderfully rich world out there, and fire is such a critical part of that whole system, and so being able to step into that complexity and try and just use my little you know, pick to chip away at one corner of that you know, vast unknown in the world of fire. Our coology is just the greatest honor and pleasure.

I've got three little kids, and you know, I when I sit down on my computer and start clacking away every day, I'm partly thinking, like, what can I do to make this world better than I, you know, than

when I came into it. And you know, sometimes it may seem that my little corner of the world is insignificant, but yeah, I like to think that that me and all my wonderful colleagues within my agency and outside of it as well, working in this area, we're all pulling in the same direction, and we're trying to you know, make this world a better place as well, and get that good fire back on the landscape and try and yeah, change the game a little bit.

at Ecology of Gavin. We are on there also at Ologies, and I'm on there as Ali Ward with one L same handles on Instagram. Come be our friends. Feel free to support the show for a dollar a month if you like it at patreon dot com. Slash Ologies Merch is available at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you Shannon Felts and Bonnie Dutch of the podcast You Are That for managing merch. Thank you Aaron Talbert for admitting the Ologies podcast Facebook group. Thank you to Emily White of the

Wordy for making the transcripts. Caleb Patten bleeps them and those are all available for free at the link in the show notes. Every other Thursday we also release new Smologies. They are edited down, short, clean, classroom friendly versions of your favorite episodes. Thank you to Zeke Rodriguez Thomas of mind Jam Media for editing those big thanks to Kelly Dwyer for website design. If you need a website, She's

your gal link in the show notes to her. Thanks Noel Dilworth and Susan Hale for keeping the schedules running and for social media quizzes and merch Monday posts. Thank you to Main Squeeze and Hottest Hell editor Jared Sleeper of mind Jam Media for putting it all together and of course longtime editing help Stephen Ray Morris of the podcast The Percast and See Jurassic Right. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music. He's in a band called Islands.

They have a new album out Ilamania And if you listen to the end, you know I tell you a secret. And this week's secret is sometimes if I need a brain break, I'll go on Craigslist and I'll just click the free section to see what people are given away, so you could see things that people just put up there are free, and I just sometimes like to look and see what people are getting rid of, and then I try to figure out, like what a life story as for that, Like why is this person giving away

like a ballerina statue? What's up with this wheelbarrow. Let's look at a couple right now? You want to Okay, okay, let's see what's up there.

come here from more context, or don't. Ultimately, none of my beeswax. Okay, so just a little behind the scenes on this one's format. Format is a little different than what you're used to. I spoke with this oologist while she was up in the wilderness of Canada on vacation, and the internet was spotty. So the first ten minutes or so, it's not the finest quality audio we've ever

had on Ologies, but we did our best. And then she sent some standalone recordings answering more questions, and then after the break, we're featuring excerpts from her own indigenous fire ecology podcast, Good Fire with Matt Christoff, making this a real community effort and a fire mosaic episode. Indeed, So this Ologist got her master's and PhD and hazard management and fire science and works as a fire social

scientist for the Canadian Forest Service. She is a Mayti woman from Treaty six Territory on land now known as Canada, and has authored papers such as Social Science Research on Indigenous wildfire management in the twenty first century and Future Research Needs. So she is well schooled on this. And then I saw she has a podcast called good Fire, recorded with Matt Christoff, who also hosts the Your Forest podcast.

So this Ologist was on vacation wanted to chat with her the one week she was trying to relax, but she luckily was very up to take a little break and chat amid spotty internet and some techtiffs. Huge thanks to Matt for getting us in touch and for lending us excerpts from Your Forest and Good Fire at a future. Also thank you to everyone at Patreon dot com slash Ologies for making the show possible. This episode was informed by the questions you left about Indigenous fire stewardship and

thanks to everyone who rates and reviews a podcasts. It matters more than you will ever know, and I read them all so I can prove it with a fresh shout out for one left this week, such as Sarah ib who wrote, I started listening to this podcast and got to the gynecological episode and decided to make my first Obgian appointment after turns out I have endometrial cancer. I had a hysterectomy and I'm currently doing radiation therapy.

Thank you, Dad Ford for this informative podcast. Sarah, what what sending you the biggest, biggest hugs and the best vibes for a speedy defeat of that, and thank you for getting checked out. Okay, onward to the episode at Homology is Simple Indigenous means native fire has a root meaning fire and ecology the study of where we live.

rain out here in the summer. In probably the last ten years, we've noticed it's been getting warmer in this area and we've been getting less rain and even the cedars, they're really starting to not look at how and then the last probably five years, we've had more summers of smoke, so it's really been Yeah, I've really noticed the change just even in my lifetime.

thing in the north. And when I moved down south to an urban center, that was when I really realized, you know, that other people didn't have that, or you know, we weren't so used to that. I guess I started actually as a geologist, but I always loved hazards, but more volcanic hazards and things that I was interested in. So I did two is actually in New Zealand, where

I did my master's on volcanic hazard management. But you know, I always kind of feel like bound to the forest in Alberta, so I ended up kind of coming back, and I even said to my PhD supervisor, like, you know, I'll study anything but fire. You know, I don't want to have fire in my life because I just, you know, it was around it all the time, and wanted something different.

But yeah, kind of slowly got pulled back into the field and yeah, I've been at the Canadian Forest Service now for about ten years.

And that's one thing I always find interesting is when I meet, you know, other fire scientists who aren't, you know, from areas that experience fire, and I think sonize it's maybe hard for them to relate, especially when we're talking about fire risk and kind of how people act during a fire event.

to themselves evacuate might not understand. And if you listened to last week's episode, I mentioned that my parents lived in the remote Sierra Nevadas for years and coercing them to evacuate during the King Fire was not easy, even with the promise of a night or two at the fantasy end with a mirrored ceiling.

who are in this field as well. But I think like pretty much since we've started having the big fire events in Canada, that's really what's forced people to kind of look at maybe a different way of looking at fire on the landscape. My interest in fire is also tied to like my own family's history. So my family's Mayti, So we're from northern Alberta, the Cardinal and Labcan families, and we kind of had like a weird kind of disconnection from culture, which most Mayte families in Canada actually

experience during colonization. And so it's basically we weren't allowed to practice any of our traditions and other things. It's interesting to be because it almost parallels fire in a way. So when settlers, you know, first came to Canada, one of the first things that they brought with them was actually fire suppression. And as they moved kind of west across Canada, they basically just put into place fire suppression

policies wherever they went. And the big reason for that was, you know, that they saw the forest of this wilderness, of this kind of natural place. But really now we know, like in lots of scientific studies now are pointing out that that wasn't natural, like many of those areas were

actually stewarded by indigenous people. To look that way, Actually, the first fire suppression campaign was in sixteen ten in Newfoundland in Canada, where that was like kind of the first you know enactment of you know, thou shelt not light fires on the landscape.

in the north. And what we've seen with that, you know, is just a massive increase in fuel loading and also kind of these like monoculture forests where there are the stands and you know, all one species, like all similar age, and they're really vulnerable to pests. There's other disturbances like fire, and so we're getting these massive, big fire events that

have come through. And so for indigenous people, you know, like my family and others, they my family were actually buffalo hunters and they used fire in the buffalo hunt, but also afterwards to improve the habitat for buffalo and other things that to help them in their hunting. When the settlers started coming across and saying like, no, you can't do this, like you don't know as much as us, like, you know, it really devalued indigenous people and their knowledge.

And then when you add into that, you know, we had residential schools in Canada where indigenous people you know, were sent there and basically told you know that, you know, it said they were savages, that their way of knowing their family, of knowing the earth wasn't proper, and you know that they had to learn this new way that

was much better. So we, like my colleague Fives al Mulla, he was telling me that they called that like a cultural severance activity, where basically you're just told that, you know, suddenly you know, you cannot practice your culture anymore. And so the impacts of that are just massive on people, not only on like, you know, their ability to use fire, but also just on who they are as a person, their pride and their family and other things. And so I too, like even now, I still have a lot

of anger about that. And you know how I was able to learn from my elders about landscape stewardship and other things because of that, you know, like kind of dominant Western worldview, do you.

It's typewritten on a typewriter. It's wild and it details all of the different biomes and how indigenous cultures shaped them with fire and if you're like no reading, need visuals. He also made a sixteen millimeters documentary titled The Fires of Spring.

right when that was happening. So for me, like I often hear people say in meetings like you know, oh well, indigenous knowledge is inapplicable to today and cultural burning practices because you know, now we have climate change, like now there's more values on the landscape in terms of thinking

about structures and other things. But I always argue against that because for me, like it's not about like Indigenous people, like we're alive today, we're part of the society, like we see all these things, like Indigenous people are on the front lines of climate change, like of course we don't if that's occurring. And you know, indigenous knowledge, the most beautiful thing about it is how adaptable it is

to the local environment. So like for like, because you know you're living in that environment, you're dependent on it.

But then as well, we also kind of have the policy or the government side, So I said, on a lot of like national or international committees or working groups, you know, looking at fire and trying to direct policy. We just recently in Canada finished the Blueprint for Wildland Fire Science for twenty nineteen to twenty twenty nine, so looking at you know, topics that we should really be

spending money basically in time doing research on. In one of those the themes from that was actually on indigenous fires. So we also have an evacuation database actually with the Canadian Forest Service, where we've tracked wildfire evacuations in Canada since nineteen eighty.

So Amy's team had been working on that, and for the curious, I will link to the full pdf on my website. Now, as far as the increasing evacuations, that issue gets more personal as this episode unfolds, even more personal than my parents in an hourly motel in RightNow. And this is something I think a lot of people have trouble wrapping their brain around. And maybe there is no good answer. But is it climate change? Is it human ignition and carelessness? Is it not letting the forest

burn as it naturally would? How do you scientists come up with plans to tackle this issue? If it's kind of like a trifold problem.

really increasing fire risks. I think that that's the hard thing too, is that there's no like magic bullet solution, right like even with cultural burning, like you know, I'm such a strong proponent of getting that back on the ground, but that doesn't at all tackle you know, how vulnerable some homes and other things are to fire at the moment.

And lately too, I've been seeing I don't know if you are seeing in the States as much, but in Canada there's a bit of a movement to just kind of you know, fireproof communities or you know, keep homes or you know, structures safe from fire. But to me, that's really missing the point of like the landscape around

your home. Like for me, I don't want to be living, you know, if my home is standing in like the middle of you know, a black and landscaping in Canada, it can take a long time for the forest to regenerate, sometimes, you know, twenty thirty forty years, and even then they're finding up north in the boreal forest that burns are just so hot that they're basically kind of killing the soil and any vegetation around. So, yeah, it's quite a

complex issue. But I think when I think as an indigenous person, I look at the forest, I don't just see it as trees or timber values or other things. You see it as like part of who you are, right like your relations So you want to be able to, you know, steward and protect that area as much as you do you know, your own home or structure.

cultural objective around the forest around where you live. So you don't really want to have these big, large, standard placing fires that go through and can kill everything in a prescribed fire event. That sometimes is what happens in Canada.

In Canada that's usually snow still on the ground. For Indigenous people, cultural burning too, is like a family a community activity. So like when I'm doing burns and things like I take my daughters. My mom was on the last one that we did.

And so if you go on to a reserve, many times, like when you speak to the elders and other people like this, they know what needs to be done in their area, Like they know if certain areas are too fuel loaded, and you know, they want to go in there and kind of mechanically treat the forests, so you know, by using machines and labor to go in and do thinning and other things before they can burn, to kind

of keep the fuel load low in those areas. So I think for me, that's the biggest thing is that we really need to go back to kind of these

local solutions to fire. And that's really kind of what our research is showing that, you know, local people want to be involved, so you know, I talk mostly about indigenous peoples, but you know, ranchers, farmers, other people who you know use the landscape for their livelihood, they also you know, really want to have a healthy forest and environment around them, and they know the areas too, and

even forestry companies. Like the one nice thing about cultural burning is that because we're doing kind of these low understory burns, like we don't want to burn the nice, big, healthy trees, right because those are so important for cultural activities and for other other like our relations other animals.

It's actually really nicely works together because you kind of can get cultural burns going through and really removing some of that dead fall and promoting those healthy big tree growth that like the timber companies love.

would use fire on the landscape in good ways. But then also we did have lightning fires obviously back then, right, but they would come across the landscape and kind of enter into this mosaic landscape that these indigenous ferns and other lightning caused fires like, and so as they would

enter them, then the fire behavior would change. So as you know, it entered a meadow, the fire intensity might decrease, and then it would go back into the forest and maybe increase, and then it would hit like a deciduous stand of trees and go down again. And so this mosaic or patchwork on the landscape was actually really helpful for fire to kind of decrease the intensity of these

fire events. But what we're seeing right now is because we've been suppressing those fire events, there's just so much fuel in the that we're seeing these bad fires. So even like I'm thinking, like the Dixie Fire in California right now, or we have like multiple fires in Canada at the moment too that are bad fires. Like lots of times, you know, we look at and say, oh, fire is natural, there's good ecologic benefits. But for me, there's nothing good about these current fires happening right now.

kind of protecting our communities from these bad fires. And especially in Canada, lots of times there we don't give enough attention, I think to those indigenous firefighters. Lots of times they're kept kind of from progressing in their careers because they might not have the appropriate Western education levels, you know, a degree or a diploma or something, but they have you know, might have twenty thirty forty years experience of being on the fire and so knowledgeable and incredible.

And I think, you know, lots of times we need to look at where Western science as well got some of its ideas. Like I've spoken to many elders who've told me about drip torches and how they would use tree limbs and sap to create their own drip torches. That's what their ancestors did, and how they would spread fire across the landscape.

actually an older technique that the communities would use. So you get kind of all the dry grass on top of a meadow or something, and they would go and burn that in the really early spring, because that's the most important thing about indigenous burning is the time to burn, when it's safe to do a good fire, and they would that would then turn that level that grass into you know, black, and so the black would absorb the heat of the sun and then start to melt the

frosts out of the ground in the early spring, and that would give you much like earlier green shoots and green grass coming up that then moves deer other things could come in and eat for in that area, so it would make your hunting or other things a lot easier to do. So yeah, I think that that's those are things you know that and there's probably so much more out there that we don't even know that community used and how they would use fire in a good way.

And I mean if people are interested as well. You know, Frank Lake, I think is probably one of the first kind of fire ecologists who also is an indigenous man, who you know, saw very early the importance of indigenous fire knowledge and bringing it and He's written some really great publications that I think for people who are eye opening, you know, about how we can use fire in a good way on the landscape and.

in twenty nineteen. They were gracious enough to let us steal some clips to round out the conversation amid our tech issues this week, and as it turned out, Amy and I had further trouble connecting because those three fires that she mentioned around her family cabin got bigger and they were forced to evacuate from their vacant So yes, her work is timely and personal, and she literally wrote the book on this, a volume titled First Nations Wildfire Evacuations,

a Guide for Communities and External Agencies, alongside Tara McGee and First Nations Wildfire Evacuation Partnership. So I'm going to link to that in the show notes as well. Now in her name, we're donating this week to a cause of her choosing and she asked her to go to

Indigenous Residential School Survivors THAT'SRSSS dot CA. For over twenty years they've assisted First Nation peoples in British Columbia to recognize and be holistically empowered from the primary and generational effect of the residential schools by supporting research, education, awareness, establishing partnerships and advocating for justice and healing. And the society asss survivors with counseling, court support, information, referrals, workshops

and more. And you can find out more at IRSSS dot Ca. There's a link in the show notes. And in Canada, consider participating in Orange Shirt Day on September thirty. It's also known as National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Okay, So that donation was made possible by some sponsors of the show.

Anthony Willis, Dnnell O'Neill, and Alexandra Quetul. And because our time chatting was cut short again, we're so honored and lucky to feature relevant clips from a conversation with The Good Fire podcast host Amy Christensen and her co host Matt Christoph. Okay, here Amy is talking to Matt about fears of fire.

it's totally different. Most Indigenous people want to bring back burning right and bring back that cultural practice to their landscape because most elders, when they look at the forest, the first thing that they say is that it's unhealthy

and that it needs cleaning up. When I first started working a bunch of elders, I'd always hear this cleaning up phrase, cleaning up, And you know, it took a while till I realized that, you know, that meant fire that they want it, because you know, you don't normally think of that. You think like, oh, go out with the rake or st like Donald.

want to do that again in their territory. But I think they also realize that because of the fire suppression that we've had over the last you know, fifty to three hundred years, depending where you are in Canada, Yeah, that it's not that easy just to bring back our burning practices right, because we burned on intervals, so depending on where you were, you know, if you were burning a meadow, you might burn the meadow every three years if you're burning like you know, an old growth forest,

and you might burn every twenty years. Like you know, it just depended on what you were burning or what objective you are trying to achieve. So you know, we and now we've excluded fire, So I mean the litter

and the build up of fuel is crazy. So I think like now most of the elders I talked to, if they say, like if we went and tried to do this now, like we would basically burn down the forest because we'd be trying to start a low intensity burned, but there's just too much fuel on the on the floor, so it would immediately like escalate.

or know better. And you know, for me, part of my job is, you know, advocating for that and trying so you know, it's not saying like drop all Western science around fire, right, we need that, we need that too, But then indigenous people and our cultures also no ways you know for making the forest healthy. So to me, if you bring those two together, it makes like you know what I mean, it's then you have like an incredible knowledge base that you're coming from, right.

them what to do. So this one guy was actually telling me that he, you know, he started out of university as kind of a fire boss and went up on the one line and he had these native crews, and he said he was that he thought they were the laziest people in the world because he's like, they would get up in the morning and work a little bit, but and he's like, then they nap all day and then like in the in the bush, you know. And then he's like, but then you know, they would get

up and kind of work all night. And then he's like and then I started like really looking and watching what they were doing. And he said that. Then one of the guys came up and told him, like, we fight the fire when it's the weakest, because we see fire as a living being. And why would you fight something at the height of its day, you know, like at two pm on a really sunny, hot day with

high winds, right, like, why would you do anything? Right, Like the fire can just jump or yeah, you know, but if you you know, fight it in the morning when it's the weakest, or in the evening or overnight.

about fire than going to school. Basically not to say, you know, don't stay in school, kids, but like because that's important too, but you know, there's other ways and other things to learn as well about about fire. Lots of the indigenous fire guys they'd always tell me. One of the funniest things is like the when the fire season first starts in like in Cree, the word for white boy or whatever moonew. So they say, like, oh,

it's so funny. One like the mooneal come on the fire because he's like, they're all just doing selfies with the fire in the background, and he's like and we're all like, you know, actually working, and he's like and you look and all the.

Nobody returns their calls. And so I think for me, like the thing to remember with that is, you know, for people to remember that, like first nations are under the Indian Act, right, so basically all their resources and you know, how their capital for how they're run all basically is decided in Ottawa almost you know, and.

as much as they can, and some are great. Like there's some nations you know that have really gone into forestry there, you know, the community.

so they want to sustain that. Most indigenous people love being in the forest, right, So right there you have a match of you know, so then it almost goes to well, then, you know, if these are our shared values,

how then can we you know, move forward together. But I think one of the problems is that there's a real lack of trust because there's been a lot of people that have taken advantage of indigenous communities, so you know, come in and said good things, said all the right things, and then you know, ended up taking money and you know, not involving the nation, and so it take it can take a while. I think like a helpful thing too

is employing indigenous people. So you know, when you make or want to work in a certain nation or with them, you know, to employ people from that band and give them, you know, a sustainable you know, career. And there's lots of indigenous people that actually have forest tech diplomas and other.

will love to work with you. But for me, I think that forestry really has an advantage over say like the oil and gas industry because I think that there's many more values or like I think the worldview of an indigenous person and a forester is much more similar. So yeah, I think that that's kind of exciting almost, and you know, something kind of a future. And I've seen like a bunch of nations now you know, are opening their own little sawmills and other things, and to me,

that's like exciting. So because it has to do with the housing crises we have, right so they want to be able to you know, harvest their own wood to build their own homes, which I mean, why we aren't doing that, I have no idea, you know, instead of shipping in the wood and timber and stuff. So I think, yeah, there's unfortunately there's not like a really easy answer. But I would say, like the biggest thing is, you know, to be genuine and patient and then understand that history.

You know, that the situation that you're coming into. Because lots of people get like a I don't want to say white savior because that sounds really bad, but you know, these kind of like oh, I'm going to go to the community and help them or you know, like and I think the.

the community and then also working long term. And that's something that you know, are especially in government, like we don't really support because you know, everyone kind of wants to climb the ladder in government, whereas you know, the most trusted people are generally the ones from the community who've been in the community the longest, and that's generally

who like an Indigenous person would trust. Yeah, so yeah, it's almost like doing these relationships long term too, And I think there's some great examples out there of things that are going really well.

don't have enough money. And then also other times, you know, we're dealing with lots of issues that have been brought up on by colonization, right, So like if you're dealing with a suicide crisis in your community, you're not really going to care about forestry, right, And so I hear people say that too, Like to me sometimes about you know, when I talk about how we're stewards of the environment, they'll say to me, like, have you ever been on

a reserve and looked at like you know, there's garbage everywhere and you know, and people don't care about their houses, and like that's hardly an environmental steward, And to me, that's colonization, right, Like that's where where we've gone and where we've been pushed.

a healthier community. So you know, instead of kids sitting inside, you know, they're out on the land and like what kid doesn't like fire, right, So they're out with their elder like burning. And then it's those neat things like even just showing kids like how smart their ancestors were.

Like the one elder that I was talking to was telling me about how drip torches actually came from First Nations people, which I didn't know, but I think, like that, to me, that's neat because you take kids out there and you show them like, well, you know, drip torches came from you, you know, and and and even like

kids had jobs on fires, right. So oh man, I actually heard this fantastic well that also made me cry the other day from this guy in Australia and he was saying for them, burning is such a family affair. And actually that's what I hear too from all of our that people I've talked to here, is that you know it wouldn't just be the men that would go out and burn, it's the entire r family and the kids.

Like one thing they would do is pick up like pine cones and you know, light them on fire and then from the fire and then throw them right.

healthy too. And I mean that kind of relates like obviously children's laughter does not you know, directly affect the tree, but it's more that like, if people are out on the land stewarding it, right, then that promotes health for the health of the trees.

you don't need provincial permission to do that. So, you know, lots of agents fire management agencies say, you know, oh, we're so supportive of indigenous people and we want to help that, you know, you know, support their practices, you know, until we say, you know, we want to burn something.

like a crazy twelve step process. And most of the communities look at that and just say, you know, we'll screw this, we're burning ourselves.

to the people or are seeing what's going on. So there's a bit of a disconnect, and I can see it from both sides, right because especially in BC, like the fires has been so crazy that I think, you know, the BC fire manager or wildfire Service there, you know, obviously doesn't want out of control fires, yes, but the nations there want to burn. And so what I'm seeing right now is because they they're just like smashing heads basically,

like they're supportive until we want to burn. And because of that smashing of heads, is that now the nations are saying like, well, screw you, this is our territory.

We're doing what we want, you know, and then like it becomes like this real conflict situation and we're trying to work with like the agency and you know, maybe even introduce some sort of like cultural burn protocol or procedure, you know that's more indigenous based, that same thing, like you're kind of getting permission, you know, you're notifying the correct authorities, but it's not as crazy as this like existing process.

you're right, we don't want out of control of fires. Yes, so yeah, the Western like the Western government, like we want to make sure that like any fire that is started is not going to become a problem for anything outside of the reserve or whatever. Right, But also at the same time recognizing that, like you, thank you were saying, Indigenous people have been working with fire for thousands of

years and understand the relationship. So how do you make sure that government feels comfortable with this going on, but

also ensuring that because it's entirely possible. Also like this is something that somebody who's playing Devil's advocate would say, right, is just saying that, like, well, how do we ensure that they know what they're doing, because it could be somebody who just because they're Indigenous, doesn't mean they know what's going on, right, they have to have that knowledge pass down and collected somehow.

to happen. I think it's probably going to have to go that these are people in this band have the knowledge, yeah, and they have to be like I don't know, And this is super westernized for me to think, right, like, these people have the knowledge and understanding of how to do this, so if they're in charge, we're not going

to worry about it. But I also feel like indigenous communities having to talk to the overlord the government, what they're doing on their own land is counter is exactly the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish here.

through to get approved. He stood up and he just said, you know, for me, this is my families and like my nation's inherent right to steward the land, this is my responsiblity. This is why I was put on this earth, you know, So for me then to have to go and ask you for permission to do what is my

responsibility and my right, that doesn't make any sense. And then he was saying, like, you know, one hundred years ago, you guys were telling us we couldn't burn because we were destroying the forest, and now you're saying, test, oh, only we can burn because you know you guys, because now the forest is destroyed. And he's like, you're the ones, you know who's practices because you wouldn't listen to us,

you know, have led to this. If you would have listened to my ancestors, you know, then we wouldn't be in this predicament we're in now, so like, let us kind of take it over. So I think it's one of those like I don't hate. I don't really like that term like wicked issue, you know, where it's like super complex, but it is kind of like that in a way, right because you like you're worried the forest

isn't healthy right now. I don't personally want to say to somebody like, yeah, go out and burn and then have you know, a massive crown fire start. But I think the thing is with indigenous fire practice is that it's you know, you're burning at very specific times. So you know, it's like early spring before the snow is left. In Canada, it's late fall, just like the day or

two before the first snow fall. Right, you're not burning like obviously in the summer, So like I would think that that, you know, obviously still should be criminalized to some extent. You know, that you need to find people or whatever that are just going because that is very high risk.

You know, he works for US Forest Service, and he's used his you know, work within this kind of western government structure to bring more fire back to his territory. So yeah, it's just it's really interesting to see kind of all the different perspectives.

Indigenous fire stewardship. So many resources, so much learning. Now to wrap up, though, let's talk about some pains in some assets. So the most vexing thing about Amy's job.

And I really realize that that's, you know, a position of privilege that I have and that I'm in to be able to do that, and it comes like with a lot of responsibility that often you know, keeps me awake at night, but for me, when I'm able to bring fire keepers or other people to events or other things and just see their pride and finally being recognized in their knowledge being known, and sometimes like I've been referring to that as kind of like you know, we

had this big severance event with fire, but now what we're almost seeing is this reunion with fire where Indigenous people are coming back to it. And so, you know, we have the land back movement for Indigenous people, and often I think, you know, we need a fire back movement as well, where Indigenous people, you know, empowered again

to make those decisions on the land. And what I'm seeing right now in Canada especially is that there is a movement where people want to be involved in fire management decisions that are happening in their territories.

at Christensen Amy on Twitter. There are more links in the show notes and up on my website Aliward dot com. Slash Ologies slash good Fire. You can follow us at Ologies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Ali Ward with one l New full length adult friendly episodes continue to come out on Tuesday, and we're moving Smologies releases to the weekend I think Sundays or Mondays, so look for a new kid friendly episode next week. Also, I'm sorry that my neighbor's dog's barking.

with social media quizz and such as always giant. Thank you to Resident editor by Resident I mean we live in the same bed, shared sleeper, who helped me stitch all these audio clips together. And also, of course to Steph Marie Morris for all the editing help and for working on Smologies now too and twenty twenty five Dad here. So since this episode first aired, also we have put Smologies in its own feeds, so there are free, classroom safe,

kid friendly episodes available. Wherever you get podcasts, you can just look for Smologies, Smologies and the new green cover art for it. Also, since his episode verst Aared, we have added a few great Ologies team members such as Aveline Malick who makes our professional transcripts, Jake Schafe and Mercedes Maitland who edit, and managing director Susan Hale Nick Thorpe and wrote the theme music. And I told you at the very beginning, look at this, you made it.

If you stick around until the end, I will tell you a fresh secret, a smoldering hot one. And for this one, I'm going to bring in editor and a legally wedded husband, Jer Sleeper.

And a really weird thing in La right now is people are finding pages of books all over because the winds are so intense that they've just taken these pages of books and scattered them miles and miles away, right, right, So I was in Vegas.

a little bit like this light snow. And so went outside and I was looking around, just at the yard and checking on things, you know, trying to make sure that nothing's on fire. See how it smells out there, not as campfirey. And I found a charred page.

let me just see, and I specified the book. I thought it was The Road by Cornick.

is a great book. Actually it's it's you do it in the sob of an oral history, and that book has a chapter that involves cannibalism, and the Road involves cannibalism, and reading those books back to back just I never had a weird phobic like you know, it's a discussion, but it never was like after reading those books, I've been so creeped out by the idea of cannibalism, like in a.

through this wasteland. And the son is still very young, and the father, in trying to protect the son sort of manages to keep the sun kind of pure and naive, even like decent, and he's trying to protect the decency in this land that there's just none of it left. It's just like a cruel, vicious, uh landscape of a type of nature that like Thomas Hobbs would think up or something like that. You're just like life is cruel, British and short.

beautiful scene in the book. And in the scene of the book, the father and the son have have had recently this stroke of luck, and they found this readout with a cash of food and stuff in it, and they have all this extra like riches for where they're at, but it's dangerous to carry that stuff in this land that the father's really scared of it being stolen from them,

to being a target now. So they're moving on and they come across this old man wandering by himself, and the scene the old man like is so scared to meet these people like that he assumes are going to victimize him somehow, that he like sits in the middle of the road and just is doing nothing. And the son is saying to say this to the old man, we're not robbers, we're not robbers, like he's this kid like that's the way he conceives of it, just robbers.

And the man is like just sitting and the father is freaking out. And the father's going like, this man is probably here to set up an ambush. He's looking around for like, where's the rest of the gang, and this is a distraction, kill us and steal it from us, And the son is going, no debt. He's just scared, Papa, he calls him. He's just scared. And the dad is like saying, if it's an ambush, you're gonna go first, like it's so intense, and he's just saying, no, pap,

He's just scared. And he begs the father to let's give him some food to feed him. He's like, please, let's just give him something, and the father basically like agrees and gives him a can of fruit cocktail and the old man's like, what do I have to do for it? And he can't even understand that they just want to help. They end up like eating a meal with him and it's just very beautiful. And it felt like holy shit, Like in this question that we're literally

talking tolves what do we do? What can we do? Uh? It was like there's your answer. It's uh, you help everybody that you can when you can, and that these very basic, small feeling things make sure people have fool I mean I you know, I have a very strong conviction that truly the meaning of life from a very evolutionary and I think spiritual standpoint is to eat delicious things and laugh in safety with people that you love. And I think everybody could be afforded that and should

be afforded that in this world. And that feeling of like when things are so intense, people are losing their homes, like very simple resources like how can you help the people around you? And that's where I've come to generally over COVID and what the internet has done to us, and the sense of helplessness and hopelessness that by focusing on like the hundred people around me that I can the people in my street, our neighbors, you and Gami are close friends, like just doing what you can as

often as possible. A lot of people are citing I've posted about this, and I hear think about all the time. They refer to the mister Rogers quote about look for the helpers, and I always just think too, like, be the helpers, you know, absolutely look for the helpers. Don't ignore in the scope of all the bad things we get. Yes, look for the good people, but also be the good people.

That's like really all we can do. And this idea from that of carrying the light that like, no matter how hellish the world feels, the only solace I've had for myself over the pandemic and different things in the world feeling darker and darker, And is that every time I feel dismayed at the world being the way it is, Why is it so mean? Why is it so cruel? Why is it so unjust? I think to myself, Well, the only thing I can do is try to be what I wish it.

Suddenly you start having these prophetic visions that come true all the time because you have accessed and consumed the shared wisdom of all the people that came before you.