Two Chicks and a Hoe
We’re gonna dig deep into some really amazing people and topics — cultivating ideas about nature, the environment and conservation — in your backyard and globally. We want to share stories with you where the only intention may be for you to say,“Wow, I didn’t know that!”…and now that you do, maybe you might think about your relationship with it differently, share the information with a friend or get involved.
Two Chicks and a Hoe
Embracing the Blaze: How 'Good Fire' Nurtures Our Forests and Traditions
Unlock the secrets of the land with wildlife biologist Dana Page, as she guides us through the rejuvenating embrace of 'good fire' in forest management. Step inside the world of prescribed burns, where each flame is a careful calculation for conservation. Together, we'll dismantle the fears surrounding controlled burns and marvel at the intricate dance of destruction and regeneration, orchestrated to protect our natural landscapes.
From the ancient echoes of cultural fire management to the modern halls of policymaking, Dana Page weaves a tale of how indigenous wisdom is rekindling its rightful place in ecosystem balance. We traverse the complex path of integrating this ancestral knowledge into current conservation strategies, navigating the constraints of modern bureaucracy. Through the smoke, we glimpse the revitalizing power of fire, as it clears invasive species, nurtures biodiversity, and safeguards the future of our forests.
The episode culminates in a deep exploration of the practicalities of fire in conservation, from strategic firefighting techniques to their ecological consequences. Dana explains the art of using firelines and backburning to create natural barriers, ensuring the safety of both flora and fauna. The dance of fire in our ecosystems is a delicate balance, one that we are learning to master with the guidance of those who have listened to its crackling song for millennia. Join us as we fan the flames of this vital conversation.
Tribal and Indigenous Fire Tradition
Interview with Dana Page
Things that make you say "Wow"!
For more episodes and additional information visit the Two Chicks and a Hoe website and our Facebook page.
Big thanks to our Producer, Casey Kennedy.
In today's conversation, we're going to dig deeper into the complex role of fire in our forests, acknowledging its sacredness and ancestral connections. Fire holds deep significance in many cultures, symbolizing both destruction and renewal, and life and death, and renewal and life and death. We'll explore how ancient wisdom intersects with modern science as we discuss the practice of prescribed fires, or also called controlled burns, a method rooted in traditional knowledge and adapted for contemporary forest management. There is a delicate balance of harnessing the power of fire to protect our lands, and we're going to explore the benefits of good fire that was a term that I learned in this conversation and we're going to see its importance in shaping and protecting the ecosystems.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody, we are with Dana Page again, who is a San Francisco Bay Area wildlife biologist, and today we're talking about a subject that I actually really didn't know much about. It was Dana's suggestion, but I thought, oh, let's check this out. Prescribed fires, or they're also called controlled burns, and I know that fire might be a sensitive topic, particularly in California, with several years of tremendous fire seasons. Dana's going to help us weed through the good, the bad and the ugly if there is any ugly about controlled burns. Welcome, Dana. Thanks for joining us again today. Thank you, Vanessa.
Speaker 2:Pleasure to be here and talk about a very timely topic. And talk about a very timely topic.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. So I think I know what a controlled burn is, but the more I read about the topic in preparation for our conversation, the more I learned that it's not necessarily a negative practice. You know, fire, fire. You know everybody thinks about fire, which I and I think, because a lot of people think that we're setting the forest on fire or some natural habitat, and that sounds kind of scary. So, dana, let's start with, I think, the big question what is a prescribed fire or a controlled burn?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can. You can call it either controlled burn, prescribed um, but they are fire that are it's fire that is planned okay. So, specifically here in the san francisco bay, land management agencies has have realized that fire is crucial and good fire is crucial. So a lot of people are trying to put good fire in front of the name fire, because they're changing yeah, not just to change that perception.
Speaker 2:And not all fire is bad, got it, they're obviously. Recently here in the bay area with the lightning storms we had some catastrophic fires that burned down people's homes and were very devastating. So instead of interpreting fire as being bad and catastrophic, there are also good fires. So a controlled fire, prescribed fire, is a fire that's planned, planned with land management agencies, with fire agencies, various fire agencies. You could have county fire, city fires, cal Fire, but Cal Fire is kind of the big player and more of the larger landscape here in California. But you have federal agencies that also do fire.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 2:guys do all this together. Generally it is something that's done together. So we, most land agencies, would not have a fire or don't have the equipment, so it's having the crews there. You need bodies that are patrolling the perimeter, people that are starting the fire. There's a whole chain of command that happens and you need multiple engines and everything is designed and set up to be successful and safe and safe exactly so.
Speaker 2:The, the temperature variations, the weather, all of this is considered in the location before a fire takes place, a prescribed fire, and so they are events that are planned and controlled. They have a prescription. That's why you might hear prescribed. So there might be some objectives in this prescribed fire, such as burning non-native plants, shrubs. So that's why you might hear, you know a fire prescription, which also relates to the weather. So you have to be within a prescription of if it's too hot, we're not going to burn. If the humidity is too low, there will be no burning. If the wind gets above a certain temperature, there will also be no burning.
Speaker 2:So fire science is used, a lot of experts and time goes into planning these events. A lot of experts and time goes into planning these events, and sometimes you plan them. And then the day comes and the day is not right, so it could be too hot, it could be too windy. Sometimes you have to cancel. So also, things are not flammable all times of the year. Right after it rains, when it's wet, you're not going to get green grass to burn. So, really, timing your event for what your objective is. But they are. They're controlled and well thought out, and until I was actively on one of these myself, it scared me also. But once I started participating and seeing the thought that goes into it and the methodical planning in how everything is designed, you actually don't even have to put the fire out.
Speaker 2:The fire puts itself out the way that it's designed Really, and so you're using wind direction with that. So if the wind's coming a certain direction, there's backing fires that go into the wind that are nice and slow. So it's described a lot of times as a catcher's mitt, right, and so think about a catcher's mitt. One side of where you're trying to burn is the mitt where the fire's going to go into. Oh, okay, and then that's where it will stop. But the, the catcher's mitt, is basically burned fuel prior to the big burn. So then it's. It's hard to describe in words. It's easier to see, but you will get your area. You want the fire to go all blocked out and burn safely, and then you can ignite the other side and let the wind do the rest of the work, and by the time the fire travels to the far end that you've already designed this mitt.
Speaker 1:There's nothing out and the fire will literally put itself out so all along the way, then there's people there making sure that it doesn't get out of that designated, designated area yeah, so there's holding you.
Speaker 2:Those people are called the holding crews. Okay, so generally you have little units of crews on the outside of the perimeter where the fire is and they have backpack pumps and they might have an engine with 150 gallons, there might be 700. So there's water. Our water sources are all planned. We know where to refill up. When one becomes empty, there's another one to fill its place while that one fills up. So everything is is very strategic. On these controlled burns wow I had no idea.
Speaker 1:So it's not just random, just random. It's not somebody just throwing a match going okay, let's see what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it took me a little time to become comfortable and get mentored, because you think fire.
Speaker 1:you know, everybody thinks fire is as so negative, but it's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there is good use of fire and you can get lots of acreage and lots of vegetation management in a large area for relatively cheap right. Think about if you had to go mow 500 acres. How long would it take you to mow 500 acres versus what is it going to take you to burn 500 acres less than a day?
Speaker 1:So I read that using. So I know we're jumping around, but we'll get. Let me just say this I had read that using fire to do something like, like you know, burn an area like that is actually better for the land, because the ash then from the vegetation feeds the land, where if it's just cut cut it may take a long time years to actually decompose and feed the land. So it's actually a quicker way of of giving the land more nutrients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's all sorts of stuff going on with that um on large forest management projects which we might go into if you in a little bit, there's these biochar machines that will take the trees and the vegetation that you burn and turn it into biochar that can then be spread and left in the area. And what does that do? Brings that nutrients and back. It's not charcoal, no, so it's biochar. I'm not exactly sure what differentiates charcoal from it's like bioav'm not exactly sure what differentiates charcoal from it's like bio available or charcoal isn't. But something about how the biochar is created. It's carbon, yeah, it's something about the carbon, and so the carbon is actually put back into that soil, into that habitat.
Speaker 1:Wow, all right. So who picks the areas that, I guess? Why? Why certain areas, and who? Who's in charge of picking those?
Speaker 2:It's pretty much up to the land management agencies and and the agencies I have worked for, generally they have agreements with the local fire agency. Okay, so there's a thing called a vegetation management program and it's an agreement with CAL FIRE that everything gets set up. So not only are the prescribed control fires planned to detail for the day of the event, but this very large, extensive document was prepared with the environmental scientist and the archaeologist and everybody within cal fires and within the agency, and that document outlines um all of our objectives and goals on paper and then generally has a map of the areas that it's been agreed upon can be burned, and so you have, you know, areas within the land that you own that are already designated, and so we have all of our compliance, environmental compliance, within these documents also. So anywhere that we, that people would burn or are going to burn, there's been thorough study of wildlife and habitat and sequas and environmental impact reports and archaeologists, yeah, and so we.
Speaker 2:Uh, a huge thing with fire is um cultural sites. You know where artifacts might be, and so we obviously avoid that. There's a lot of burials on public lands, within parks that you know. There's a lot of people that are into that, so that information is kept silent where burial sites are. But that's all mapped out in these larger documents and then for the agencies to have and then and then respected for as part of this.
Speaker 2:So you know we will still burn above those areas. But then it's understood like um, you know there's control lines and hand lines that get put in with tools. So then there's the, you know, top layer or whatever layer of the earth might be disturbed. So then if within one of our control sites we know there's an archaeological site, everyone at the briefing in the beginning of the day will be notified that, like no, you know, no, uh, you cannot break any earth or any ground within this area, and it all gets flagged and avoided.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, that's cool, yeah. So, wow, the control burn is very planned day of, and then there's many years of planning that go into having an agreement with the fire agency to ensure that everything is written down on paper and agreed upon prior to these events happening. So, which can be bureaucratic, and it took us, uh, it takes people, it takes agencies a long time to to get the permitting. Where I know there's some other, uh, land management agencies in the region that had fire programs and then they stopped them. So then you're, you're kind of not valid anymore and you have to reestablish all of these things and it can be a very lengthy bureaucratic process.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So why? Why are we doing this? Why are we burning? Why are we setting things on fire? On purpose?
Speaker 2:As a biologist and resource manager, my objective is ecological Okay, and so generally it's to enhance the habitat, to promote the native. So a lot of the native plants that you would find in California are adapted to fire. They want fire, they need fire. We'll manage invasive species um through fire. So yellow star thistle, thistles, um try to burn it to get rid of the seed so that it will not spread, but then hopefully the native plants because it's more sensitive.
Speaker 1:So a lot of these invasive species are more sensitive to fire. Yeah, yes, yes, okay, so fire then can eliminate them. So what's the deal with invasive species? What's the problem there?
Speaker 2:Over my many years of work I've tried to make A very concise statement about because I've led guided hikes and you teach people and you say this is invasive and this is native.
Speaker 2:But they're like it's like it's pretty Well, what's the point? So the best analogy that I have that I think everybody can understand is think of an ecosystem as your car Right and so ecosystem as your car right and so everyone has your car. You have to maintain your car With all the dog hair, but I'm thinking of the engine and how your car runs but you're not going to get your dog in the car or go anywhere if your car's not running. So think about the oil you have to put, the gas you have to put into your car. And like what if you put diesel into a gas engine? Yeah, problems, you have problems. So if you put a lot of diesel into a gas engine, like, then you have to fix that. So whether you're putting the wrong oil or the wrong fluids or the wrong spaces, like, your car is still going to function. I mean, if you it's, this is the closest analogy I've your car is still going to function. I mean, if you it's, this is the closest analogy.
Speaker 1:I've gotten Okay, okay Right.
Speaker 2:But then it's, if you put um, some, you know the wrong fluids in your car is still going to work, but is it going to work good, and is it going to work for 20 years or is it going to work for five years? So another analogy could also be your body right and how you feed and fuel your body so you could eat vegetables and things that are healthy for you, that are natural for you, or you could eat McDonald's or fast food every day, so how this then applies to that talking about invasives is you're just getting a smaller return.
Speaker 2:So your life expectancy would be less if you weren't eating the correct food and you would have health problems. So the land starts to get sick and degraded. And so, how the land would naturally function on something healthy, it's still functioning because it's not like an invasive plant is ruining the land. Right, there's still insects going up for pollination. Um, there's still animals eating it, all these things.
Speaker 2:So it's not like the ecosystem is completely failing because of these invasives, but it's just not running, it's not thriving, it's not thriving as it could. And then all the things that are connected to that, specifically plants and that soil, right. So then, uh, the the butterfly might be getting nectar, but maybe it's not the right kind of nectar. So then that butterflies having less babies are not enough energy. So, um, when you're putting in the wrong food in your body, the wrong, taking wrong care of your car, you're not getting the life expectancy and it's not thriving. The same way, that will happen to an ecosystem. That's a good analogy. Okay, got it, that's a good analogy, right? So it's not like you're going to die if you eat McDonald's, right? Or fast food or bad food, but it's definitely not making you the best that you could be, to your fullest potential.
Speaker 1:So fire, then, is used to remove invasive species.
Speaker 2:Invasive species, but also, as a lot of people know, fire is a natural adaptation of the habitats found in California.
Speaker 1:What do you?
Speaker 2:mean by that. So before humans existed, there would have been lightning strikes, there would have been fires, and they would have burned for thousands and thousands of acres until they put themselves out. Okay, they put themselves out, okay. So a lot of the the plants that you see, um, want fire. So these habitats have evolved to have a regular disturbance regime of fire and then, once you put humans into having homes and being permanently here and stopping fire now we're preventing all these ecosystems that once, in whatever that regular interval, they would see fire. They then no longer see fire. Fire is a natural occurrence. Yes, so fire is a natural occurrence that we have suppressed due to fear of catastrophic fires and fires burning our homes, and so we've suppressed it. But it is something that should naturally be happening at varying intervals depending on a habitat.
Speaker 1:So I think that takes me to what I learned about today, about cultural fire and fire that's been used by indigenous peoples around the world for millennia to manage the land and, in turn, protect it from devastating wildfires. And these communities view fire as sacred and a powerful element used in ceremony, community protection and sustaining diverse plant and animal life. And sustaining diverse plant and animal life and you know the same kind of things. It reduced invasive species, it promoted the ecosystem and it supported wildlife, food and medicinal plants. So I know that indigenous peoples around the globe have always used fire as one of their sacred tools to walk through the earth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but I think they and I am saying this not in fact, but I'm assuming they begun to use fire in their regular life as an observation of seeing it happen naturally. Yes, right, so I don't think one day somebody woke up and was like, oh, we need to burn that. Just through hundreds and thousands of years of being on that landscape, landscape and learning from their ancestors who saw a natural fire start because fire is natural and there would be lightning strikes that would start fire and then that fire would burn so I'm sure, through their observations of seeing these natural fires, they then began to learn that it's a way that they could manage. And the only thing, um, with what you said about the burning is I don't know how many invasive species there would have been, historically right.
Speaker 2:So invasive species is kind of a new thing oh yes, because once there was European movement around the globe, that's when invasives came, so they probably, you know, didn't have too many species they were unfamiliar with Understand, of course, like we do now, which is, you know, one of our main objectives for using fire good fire last hundred years or so.
Speaker 1:My understanding too is that a lot of the indigenous people were no longer allowed to use cultural fire and it kind of changed the landscape of a lot of the forests and a lot of the habitats. And can you explain that a little bit? What kind of then started? You know whether it's the undergrowth or yeah.
Speaker 2:So and I think now, one of the objectives of prescribed fire, controlled fire, good fire, is to reduce the fuels that are overabundant, that have a lot to do with just what we thought were the appropriate land management practices. So you know, um the environmental movement and not cutting down forest because we thought it was bad to do forestry one. You know, some level of managing the forest is necessary if we're not going to allow fire or or allow anything. So I think the uh, we are beginning to understand that um allowing um these native people back onto their lands to be allowed to do these things as necessary. There's a lot of agencies that are allowing them to do cultural burns, um I understand they're working hand in hand now.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, more so than ever. Then. More so than ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more so than ever but, but there's still a lot of constraints as far as American modern ideals on having someone to be federally recognized as a tribe and what does that mean? And these are all parameters that we, as outsiders, have put on them Right, have put on them right. So, um, I see a huge movement in pushing towards um, having the participation of natives in these burns and using the um traditional ecosystem knowledge that they have to manage these landscapes, um, but there's still a lot of bureaucratic and political things that are preventing these relationships from flourishing. So I hope it's coming. It's coming. Yes, we want political.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're on a precipice of that era coming, but it's slow and steady and it's got to be at this. You know, as Americans, in our culture, it's kind of we want things quick and things to happen fast. But, as it was explained to me by an elder, we have to do it at the tribal pace and it might not be at the same pace, which is different. Even a slow you know, bureaucracies pace might be, might be faster than the tribal pace. Interesting.
Speaker 1:But going back to those types of practices then, whether it's a more ancient practice that I know that the organizations you're talking about now are using as well, you're talking. Tell me what you're removing when you do a. Besides invasive species. I saw a diagram that was talking about a heavier forest, you know, with the big trees, the big timber, and they did a burn underneath and it got all the little stuff off the bottom. It didn't burn the trees and it actually it was all about protecting the roots as well of these ancient trees, but it didn't. So tell me about that, because that that to me looks like a way of to manage these big fires when you have a lightning strike, for example a way of to manage these big fires, yes, when you have a lightning strike, for example, exactly, and so that's that's a big thing.
Speaker 2:Is um, locally here, uh, within the santa cruz mountains, it was logged right and so at one point, logging and logging is not bad, there's a sustainable and good way to log. But I think, um, at you know, whatever point, when the majority of the santa cruz mountains was logged, there was clear cuts. Ah, that's different and that's different. There's like clear cutting, there's unhealthy logging and forest management and there's healthy forest management. But at that time people didn't know and it was just like, hey, I can get money for all these redwood trees, so let's remove all these redwoods, which has changed completely.
Speaker 2:There's some very great foresters out there Got it. The whole forestry has completely changed from what it was. In logging operations, awesome Can happen in a sustainable way.
Speaker 2:And after these larger fires we're realizing, if you look at um the santa cruz mountains and the fires that happened, the areas that were logged had less intense fires than the areas that were not logged okay, because they're logging them and managing them actively where a lot of the protected lands and private lands um, you know, it's kind of been um part of the smoky bear era we're gonna talk about smoking the bear here. Yeah, wait, let's finish that.
Speaker 1:One thought though um, about, about the burning of the underneath yeah, so, um, they call those ladder fuels.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, and so when you study, uh, fire science and fire ecology, a stick and grass grass is an hour uh, you know there's different times it would take that to burn. So think about how quick a blade of grass would catch on fire versus a twig, versus a sapling, versus a bush, versus a hundred year old redwood tree. Okay, so if you took a lighter up to a blade of grass, it would ignite. Yeah, if you would bring a lighter up to a twig, it would take you some time, but if it was dry it would ignite pretty quick. But could you go up to a hundred year old redwood tree and get it to ignite with your lighter? Probably not, I hope not. So what you're talking about with you know, 50-year-old, whatever kind of tree chances are, then the fire is going to be so intense near and around that tree that then that tree will ignite. Oh, so then it goes up the ladder.
Speaker 2:So then it goes up the trees and then it'll get into the canopy of the forest and then you have what they call crown fires. And then those are what is catastrophic Not necessarily for redwoods, because redwoods are very adapted to fire and they can grow back from fire. But you know, if you torch a tree all the way to the top, it's going to die a lot of them. But if just some of it burned along the outside and maybe a little bit of the lichen and the moss or a few of the lower branches, that tree is going to survive. So the idea behind that land management is getting rid of those lighter, lighter fuels that are going to create a larger catastrophic fire.
Speaker 1:So that's how they manage and protect them.
Speaker 2:So again, through controlled burns, yes, I mean there's a lot of you, there's a lot that would have to go in before just burning that stuff. But a lot of the forest health projects happening locally is paying contractors and people to come in and masticate and remove those lighter fuels, and so also people that live in these communities around this forest are beginning to learn. A lot of people wanted screening and privacy, but now they're realizing that having those bushes is just kind of putting them in danger. It's fuel.
Speaker 1:Got it. Got it, okay, interesting, all right. So I think we understand why. Why now we're seeing the really positive effects of controlled burns, from land restoration, returning the nutrients to the ground, destroying invasive native plants, and then, I think you mentioned, to certain plants, especially in environments, I think, around the globe, that have natural fire. I know everywhere has natural fires, but, like you said, california plants were adapted to it because it's kind of part of the makeup of the landscape, landscape here. So certain plants, though, need fire right in order to disperse their seeds. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I think a lot of that is like pine forest. Yes, the pine, the pine the pine family. In order for that cone to open and distribute that seed needs fire. But yeah, I think in general, like a lot of the chaparral habitats that you see up and around the mountains around here, are also very adapted to fire as well.
Speaker 1:So okay, so removing the use of cultural fire over the years. And then I don't know when this guy was introduced, but you know, we all grew up with Smokey the Bear and we laughed, you guys, because we both, when we said Smokey the Bear, Dana was like oh yeah, you know. And a friend of mine told me too that Smokey was a problem, you know, but he had. I think the intentions were good, obviously, but smoky the bear did a really good job, didn't he?
Speaker 2:he did and so I think that's um. It was 1944. 1944, smoky was introduced. Yeah, so the creation of smoky the bear was authorized by the Forest Service. And it was about preventing forest fires and it was because you do see a lot of fires that are man induced. Oh, campers.
Speaker 1:Maybe campers by accident, so accident.
Speaker 2:A lot of the fires you see locally is people mowing during a hot day because they want to get rid of the grass. Right, that's a big mistake people do. The days start getting hot and you think, man, I haven't mowed my dry grass. So they go out and mow their dry grass and then a spark ignites and the humidity is low and the temperature is high and then a fire starts.
Speaker 1:All the right things.
Speaker 2:All the right things, but it's funny because it's pretty counterintuitive. Somebody went outside to prevent fire, but then started the fire. So so, yeah, I think that was the whole initiative of Smokey the Bear right Put out your forest fire and have better management practices when you're out in the forest from 1944. But they did such a good job and it's such a creative and friendly way to approach this topic that it was super successful and in turn, kind of and in turn it uh made everyone think that fire had to be stopped and prevented and, um, you know, maybe it gave fire that perception of being bad right, so smoky the bear says only you can prevent forest fires that's yeah, and did a good job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did a good job did a good job. So it's pretty interesting to see how something that was maybe a safety thing I feel like snowballed into this huge cultural perception of fire being a bat being bad and wanting to stop it. And I was having an interesting conversation with someone the other day about control. Like, obviously we're having controlled, prescribed fires, but then we do have forest fires that are start naturally or unnaturally, and in places like California and within some fire agencies, your immediate response is to stop the fire, right, like, oh no, there's a fire, we've got to put the fire out. And so a lot of the tactics that are used to put out fire is bulldozer equipment, is flame retardants from aircraft. Right, that's the. You see the thing dropping? Yeah, that they drop. I mean they are dropping water, but sometimes there's flame retardant.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people go straight to suppression. Oh no, there's a fire, let's suppress it. But then you look at some other agencies and it's more federal agencies where it's like then the one interesting thing that I learned being trained in fire stuff was you don't fight a fire head on, right, if there's a huge fire coming at you, you're stupid to think that you can put it out with your the water, that the trunk in your engine or that you have right. So a lot of what you learn is how to strategically fight the fire where you can win. So you would never, uh, fight a fire head on, um, you know. So a lot of times they'll then doze a line a mile, two miles in a contingency, or you know they're gonna, they're gonna, bulldoze ahead and get rid of that vegetation. So then when that fire front comes, it will stop it. But then like the catcher's mitt.
Speaker 2:like the catcher's mitt. Like the catcher's mitt, but quickly, and you can do backburning also as a catcher's mitt, which is probably preferable, but then sometimes people will come in with a bulldozer. And as a biologist and land manager, then you have all this excavated, moved dirt for many miles that causes ecological problems, so like. But we're on this here, we're on this like suppression bulldoze, stop it where. If you look at the uh forest service now and blm, they'll let that fire go right and so they're not so much worried, but they do have more acreage and probably less homes right, right to worry about, but um, and why are they letting it go?
Speaker 2:for the reasons that we're talking about well, I think so, but then it's just like a shift in culture and thought of, like, what these agencies want to do, where it's like, instead of thinking about, well, we have to stop it here, like, um, I know that, uh, what's the firefighter? Um saying, hurry up and wait. Oh, because, like, usually, it's like, oh, there's a fire, get your gear. Yes, everyone, get ready, hurry up, get there. And then you get there, and then the ic is like well, we're just waiting until, uh, it gets here. Right, so a lot of your planning is for where the fire is going to go. But I think the forest service and the blm have learned like and the blm is the Bureau of Land Management- Because not everybody knows that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know they're like, well, we're just going to let it run to that road, because there's already a road there.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it's not going to pass the road.
Speaker 2:It's a break, so it's already a break and instead of, like you know, getting a dozer in there and dozing and doing all this work, why don't we just get all our crews stopped at this road, maybe burn in a catcher's mitt, right? So then when it gets there, it just naturally will put itself out. So these are all the like little things that a lot of the average person isn't thinking about, that fire, fire minded people, the trained people, um, know and think about when it comes to fighting fire. Wow.
Speaker 1:Wow, there's a lot to it. There is a lot to it and I've always heard that fire kind of has a mind of its own. It's very unpredictable.
Speaker 2:I mean technically it can be unpredictable, and I think it's not fire that's unpredictable. It could be weather, that's unpredictable that feeds it right, that feeds it.
Speaker 2:And so I mean, obviously you get fire at certain levels and it is, and there's fire whirls and this stuff. But I think the other thing too, when you look at these large scale fires, like they have people that are checking the know the weather patterns for weeks in advance, you know, and so a lot of fire stuff is knowing the future weather. So that's one of the things they first train you. But it's like you know it's going to be 90 degrees and low humidity for the next two days, but in three days there's a low pressure system coming in and the humidity is going to increase and the temperature is going to drop and then naturally the fire won't have as much energy to start to suppress, it'll start to suppress.
Speaker 2:So another big thing is just like knowing weather patterns and wind shifts. You know the fire can be going one way and the wind's pushing it and it's going really fast, and then, whether whether you're in a Canyon or um, uh, you know the fog comes in out here, like the fog causes a big wind shift in the afternoon. So all these things are are having an effect on that fire. Wow.
Speaker 1:One question that I I I didn't look up any information on this what do prescribed fires do for wildlife? I have this vision, dana. You know my vision. You know, because I've always heard, too, that the raptors sit on the outskirts of a fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're talking the birds of prey, you guys, sit on the outskirts and wait for the little animals to run out.
Speaker 2:And it's like, yeah, time to run out and it's like, yeah, time, yeah, I mean, if it was natural. And I mean any, do they do that? Have you seen that? Yeah, I mean, I have, I have seen that. But um, there's a very predictable predator prey cycle and relationship and ecology that you study and you know prey population goes up. Predator population eats that. So they're like cyclical right. So the the lower, smaller prey animal will increase and then they'll be more bobcats got it. But then there'll be so many bobcats and they'll have babies and have a few successful years, but then they eat all the squirrels and the rodents. So then the squirrel and rodent population drops, but then shortly after that so will the bobcat population. So they're very dependent on each other. But it's natural to see and that increases and decreases.
Speaker 2:so, um, any large animals gonna get away, you know, okay, um, specifically in the prescribed control burns, um, oh, because they're slow moving right, or like a deer. A deer is going to know what's going on and run away. But I would say as far as rodents, they'll probably get under the ground. No wonder. I'm assuming lizards and snakes would be able to get out of the way, but I'm sure there's some casualty of wildlife that's but if it was happening, naturally it would happen also.
Speaker 1:I just I think about that.
Speaker 2:I you know the whole idea of all the animals running out of the forest part of, like our controlled, prescribed burn planning is that there's like, if there was a raptor nest, right, so like as a biologist, I'm the biologist on the fire that's like, hey, we have an active nest here and so this will be avoided, right, and so then we would put a perimeter around that active nest. Or obviously, if we knew, uh, there was a den with coyote babies or bobcat babies, like that then would be avoided and excluded from any prescribed or controlled burn.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. So it really is. I mean, it sounds to me like every all these details are thought out and there's obviously unavoidable things.
Speaker 2:At times, like you know, something gets missed, but that's kind of the natural cycle right If it was a natural fire, it would probably have consequences Some you know bad consequences on some wildlife populations. But we try to thoroughly avoid that.
Speaker 1:Awesome Good fire. I would never have really put those two words together, but I see now the important role that fire plays in our forests and other landscapes. Fire is a part of nature, like rain. It's an essential element of the Earth's ecosystem, one that we must learn to respect and coexist with, while creating that balance between its potential for destruction and its role in renewal. Thanks for listening. You guys Take care of each other. Thank you.