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We&#8217;ll be honest—we&#8217;ve been hoping to talk to Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz since this podcast&#8217;s inception. Franz is responsible for the management of over six millions acres of public lands and the state&#8217;s wildland firefighting workforce, so we were pretty excited to finally have the opportunity to have a conversation with her a few weeks ago.&nbsp;



Our conversation ran the gamut from the forest resilience measures she&#8217;s taken while in office, to the All Hands All Lands approach to fuels reduction, to her vision for a more fire-adapted Washington. Life with Fire is based in Bellingham, WA—an admittedly wet place to host a wildfire podcast—so we also spoke a bit about the changing conditions in the west Cascades and how her office is hoping to bring more wildfire awareness to the westside.&nbsp;



You can support the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.patreon.com/lifewithfirepod">Life with Fire Patreon</a>&nbsp;if you dig what we&#8217;re doing, or maybe write us a review or follow us on social media (@lifewithfirepod).&nbsp;

Forest Resilience Policy at the State Level with Hilary Franz

Our 50th episode! In today&#8217;s episode, we spoke to professional forester Emily Dolhansky about the fire-adapted ecosystems of her home state of New Jersey. Perhaps you&#8217;ve seen some footage of the Jimmy&#8217;s Waterhole Fire (pretty good fire name tbh) in southern New Jersey—as of this writing, it&#8217;s sitting at nearly 4,000 acres and 75% containment after exhibiting fire behavior that would be extreme by almost any geographic area&#8217;s standards.



Emily filled us in on the fire ecology and history of the pine barrens, where she spent &nbsp;as a kid growing up in NJ. Emily wrote her master&#8217;s thesis at Yale on the pine barrens of the northeast (which exist all over the northeast and midwest—not just NJ) and talked through some of the common misconceptions of Northeast wildfires while providing a good bit of context for all those wild videos we&#8217;re seeing on social media this week.&nbsp;



To learn more about the fire history of the pine barrens, check out <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.firesciencenorthatlantic.org/post/pine-barrens-of-the-northeastern-u-s-emily-dohlansky-2018" data-type="URL" data-id="https://www.firesciencenorthatlantic.org/post/pine-barrens-of-the-northeastern-u-s-emily-dohlansky-2018" target="_blank">this piece</a> that Emily penned while at Yale. 



Looking for a new pack? Check out Mystery Ranch&#8217;s <a href="https://www.avantlink.com/click.php?tt=pl&amp;ti=4703&amp;pw=348921&amp;mi=13570&amp;pt=3&amp;pri=603" data-type="URL" data-id="https://www.avantlink.com/click.php?tt=pl&amp;ti=4703&amp;pw=348921&amp;mi=13570&amp;pt=3&amp;pri=603">stellar selection</a> and let them know we sent you by using the link above.

Fire in the Pine Barrens of the Northeast with Emily Dolhansky

As indicated by the title of this episode, we covered some SERIOUS ground in our conversation with Dr. Natasha Stavros, Director of the Earth Lab Analytics Hub at CU Boulder. Natasha’s background in the academic realm combined with personal experiences with wildfire (being evacuated from one of California’s first megafires back in the early 2000s, and most recently seeing the impacts of the Marshall Fire on the Boulder community) gives her a strong understanding of fire from both the academic and the community perspective. As such, our conversation touched on everything from how technology can help build fire resilience if paired with strong policy, the impacts of smoke on vulnerable populations and her own reckoning with the psychological impacts and trauma of wildfire.



<a href="https://earthlab.colorado.edu/our-team/natasha-stavros">Learn more&nbsp;</a>about Natasha and the work she is doing at the Earth Lab.

The Psychology of Fire and Innovating without Ego with Dr. Natasha Stavros

In our second episode with Oregon Prescribed Fire Council found Amanda Rau, we discuss how she has connected the dots between her philosophy degree and her fire career, what other agencies and jobs she is interested in pursuing, the Oregon Certified Burn Manager Course and her vision for getting fire in the hands of more people in Oregon and beyond.&nbsp;



Learn more about the <a href="https://www.oregonrxfire.org/">Oregon Prescribed Fire Council</a>.

The Philosophy of Fire with Amanda Rau, Part Two

This week&#8217;s guest Amanda Rau has worked for nearly every fire-adjacent agency or organization that exists in the state of Oregon. From the Forest Service to a contract crew to the Nature Conservancy and a current role with the Oregon Department of Lands, Amanda has had a hand in just about every side of the Oregon fire world that you can get.



Naturally, that means she has a lot of fantastic perspective on what she has gleaned from each job, as well as the lessons she&#8217;s brought from the suppression world to her work as a prescribed fire advocate and current chair of the Oregon Prescribed Fire Council. This conversation was recorded back in September in Eugene, Oregon, as fire crews prepped to burn a unit nearby. This conversation is also broken up into two parts—part two will be released next week.

Making Your Own Spark, with Amanda Rau (Part One)

Life with Fire Podcast

Life with Fire Podcast

Episodes

Ep. 51—Forest Resilience Policy at the State Level with Hilary Franz

Ep. 50—Fire in the Pine Barrens of the Northeast with Emily Dolhansky

Ep. 49—The Psychology of Fire and Innovating without Ego with Dr. Natasha Stavros

Ep. 48—The Philosophy of Fire with Amanda Rau, Part Two

Ep. 47—Making Your Own Spark, with Amanda Rau (Part One)

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