Fire Stories: An Interview with Firefighting Veteran Jim Klump

Today we are sharing an interview with firefighting veteran Jim Klump, who is something of a legend in the wildland fire world. Jim worked as a firefighter, smokejumper, helicopter crew superintendent and district fire management officer over the course of a U.S. Forest Service career that spanned four decades. Jim was part of the first … Read more

Indigenous Fire Futures

Hey everyone, happy Thanksgiving. Today we’ve got a special feature – an interview with Bruno Seraphin and Deniss Martinez, who recently helped write a paper on indigenous fire futures which puts forward the thesis that if we are talking about giving land back to Native Americans, many communities won’t be able to thrive or manage … Read more

Forest Management Lessons From the Dixie Fire: A Conversation With Forest Service Biologist Danny Cluck

What did the 2021 Dixie Fire teach us about our public lands and how they are managed? What are we doing well, and what could we do better? In reflecting on the lessons learned from the Dixie Fire, The Lookout spoke with Danny Cluck, a biologist with U.S. Forest Service working in the Modoc, Lassen, Plumas … Read more

Alternative Paths Into Fire Leadership

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 … Read more

Reimagining Our Relationship With Wildfire

Today, we’re sharing an interview we recorded in the spring with Will Harling, who works to reintroduce prescribed fire and managed wildfire in Northern California’s remote Klamath Mountains. In the interview, we discuss some of the challenges we’re facing as a result of the way wildfires are currently managed, and talk about how we might … Read more

An interview with Wolfy Rougle

We sat down recently with Wolfgang (Wolfy) Rougle to talk about prescribed fire, and efforts she is helping lead to increase local capacity for citizen-led prescribed burning in Butte County, Califorina. The Butte County Prescribed Burn Association has been running for several years, and has helped landowners to safely burn on private property around Forest … Read more

8/9/2021 – KQED Interview

Today I did an interview on KQED: https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101884878/dixie-fire-3rd-largest-in-california-history Content below is from KQED website: A firefighter surveys a destroyed downtown during the Dixie fire in Greenville, California on Aug. 5, 2021.  (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images) The Dixie Fire, which has ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres in Northern California and leveled the … Read more