Life With Fire

Life With Fire

Episodes:

Ep 1: How Wildfires Are Impacting Outdoor Recreation, with Jamie Ervin

Ep 2: Building Trails in Burn Areas, with Dillon Osleger

Ep 3: Living with Fire in Tahoe—with Athlete, New Dad and Climate Advocate Cody Townsend

Ep 4: How Do Wildfires Impact Snowpack? With Andrew Schwartz

About the Podcast:

Whether you’re a biker, hiker, trail runner, skier, snowboarder or climber you’ve probably noticed that wildfires are changing the way you get outdoors, if not referring to it as a whole new season in itself.  POW Creative Alliance member, Amanda Monthei, is a freelance writer, podcast producer and former wildland firefighter. She’s had an up-close relationship with fire and seen how climate change is fueling the intensity of these wildfires across the west, and the effects it has on our communities and the places that we love to recreate. 

“Life With Fire” is a podcast that explores our relationship with wildfires and how we can better coexist with them in the future. Monthei breaks down complex wildfire topics, including tree ring sampling, climate change impacts, grassroot fire resilience efforts, trans-women who fight fires and so much more by chatting with experts in these niche areas and telling their personal stories from working in the field. 

“The podcast went from a way to explore topics like fire ecology, resilience and prescribed burning, to being about the culture around fire and how that connects to the larger topics and how we can coexist with it,” said Monthei. “I’m trying to bring in diverse voices and specialties on these subjects that include not only people from a science, policy and operations background but folks from local communities who are doing good work on the ground and getting stuff done as well.”

Through both talking with experts and exploring her own relationship with wildfires, Monthei says the way fires are impacting our lives as people who recreate outdoors is simple: We just aren’t getting outside as much in the summer months. “We have to make choices on whether we’re going to go for a run by checking the AQI forecasts for sometimes weeks at a time, or deciding whether or not to take a vacation,” said Monthei. 

Because of the way we’re changing how we get outdoors due to fire season, Monthei saw an opportunity to better engage and educate the outdoor community on these topics. “Whether it’s going for a walk, taking a bike ride or skiing, you’ve likely been impacted by a wildfire in some way,” said Monthei. “Talking about trail closures, air quality and water quality issues through a recreation lens is a great way to engage and educate folks on these concerns and how it connects to them in their own lives.”

Monthei believes that storytelling is a more powerful tool than sharing a news article or research paper, and the hope is that through these podcasts, more people will be inspired to take action on climate. “My following has a lot of different ideologies, but something we can all agree on is that we want to save these lands for future generations and part of that is building climate and fire resilience,” said Monthei. 

On the “Life With Fire” podcast, Monthei chats with other POW Alliance members about their own personal experiences with wildfires. You can dive in by clicking on the button below.