While many of the managers overseeing prescribed burns are former firefighters, there are others who take different roads into fire leadership.
Claire Monahan is on one of those alternative paths. Claire has worked in increasingly complex roles as a prescribed fire practitioner and fire scientist on the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve.
Claire was introduced to the world of prescribed fire through her job with the ecological reserve, which she applied for after working on a post-fire recovery research project at Chico State University.
Watch our interview with Claire Monahan below to learn more about her journey into prescribed fire leadership, her experience as a student of fire and her ideas on helping the public become more comfortable with fire as a land management tool.