Guest Writer, Author at Wildfire Today

Fire and Rice: the value of Dayak cultural practices

Guest WriterMarch 24, 2025Cultural fire1 Comment

By Michael Hill.

On Kalimantan – Indonesia’s part of the island of Borneo – Dayak traditional culture is deeply connected to its people’s endless cycle of fire and rice.

Dayak people in the mountainous village region of Loksado have retained their ability to use wildfire to clear their fields, but they fear politics and confusion over their highly controlled wildfires and the destructive wildfires in other areas of Kalimantan will soon lead to a ban on their practices.

A Dayak firing boss in front with a carrying basket for supplies, and an ignitor behind with a traditional bamboo firing pole. Photo Michael Hill.

If the Dayak people are prevented from continuing to use wildfire, as they have done for hundreds of years as part of their system of slash-and-burn field rotations, their culture and identity will collapse.

I was fortunate to be invited to South Kalimantan in 2024 to practice wildfire-use skills with some of Kalimantan’s last Dayak people who live a remote, traditional lifestyle using fire to prepare fields to plant rice. The Dayak people use wildfire as a tool to manage the land on which they plant, and on which they and their ancestors have always relied.

Wildfire is used by the Dayak people to clear small, field-sized, often steep pockets of mountain forest; the ash created by the wildfires fertilizes the rice fields.

A Dayak guide named Samuel, with a friend, near the village of Loksado, demonstrates the use of traditional Dayak fire line scraping tools. Photos by Michael Hill.

I witnessed the Dayak people’s control of wildfire as a tool, and it showed me they are global leaders in managing complex wildfire-use situations. Dayak fire knowledge has tremendous value for wildland firefighting agencies worldwide.

Borneo, where the Dayak live, is the third-largest island in the world. Kalimantan’s meaning in Indonesian refers to the whole island, while in English, the term describes only the 73 per cent of the land mass located in Indonesia, containing about 70 per cent of the island’s population. Kalimantan’s land mass covers 554,150 kilometers, divided into five provinces and the non-Indonesian territories of Borneo, Brunei and East Malaysia.

Kalimantan was originally Kalamanthana, or “burning weather Island,” meaning its climate is very hot and humid.

Kalimantan is home to many cultures and the Dayak, or people of the interior, are an Indigenous group of traditional people known for their complex spiritual beliefs, welcoming hospitality to strangers, and for being proud of their culture based on their mastery of fire.

Historically, Dayak people are tied to the use of wildfire in their agricultural practices to clean up land, or slash-and-burn farming. Using fire to clear farming plots in a rotating system allows for conservation. Preselected areas or fields are used for a predetermined number of years before they are allowed to go back to nature to recover their fertility, while other fields are cleared by cutting and burning to be ready for planting until the fertile cycle is complete. Then another field is cleared and so on.

The Dayak world is rich with nature and spirits and the rotating system of agriculture and wildfires to clear land is culturally important. Clearing is extremely well controlled with organized family groups using pre-constructed fire breaks, fire-control tactics, and planning to consider terrain factors, predicted winds, and fuel conditions.

Dayak people are no longer the only Indonesians who live in the interior of Kalimantan where the rainforests long acted as a moist blanket to keep out fires or retard fire growth. Now, cultural changes are happening as the Dayak people join the wave of progress brought by globalism.

Dayak people have maintained an incredible depth of fire-use knowledge, and if given the opportunity on a global scale, this knowledge could be part of the solution to manage wildfire in response to global climate change and potentially influence international fire management practices that are sometimes created for local political gains.

Over my 16 years as an Australian bushfire firefighter, with knowledge of North American and international Indigenous fire use practices, I have observed that Australia does not possess a national set standard course on advanced fire use skills for bush firefighters to the highly refined degree of knowledge that the Dayak people of Loksado possess. A relationship between the Dayak people and the Australian bush fire agencies would be a perfect marriage and would fulfill the needs of both cultures.

My journey with the Dayak people began more than 20 years ago when I was traveling the Indonesian islands as part of a trip across Southeast Asia. While in Borneo, chance led me to a riverboat to journey with a crew of Indonesian adventurers known as Bugies. We traveled upriver deep into the heart of the island of Borneo and back.

I saw many things on the river and occasionally on land, but I was most fascinated watching the traditional Dayak riverside villages during the burning season. I watched the pockets of smoke rise from the jungle, and in other places I saw blackened, fresh-burned fields among the otherwise jungled riverbank.

As a descendant of ancestors from the people of fire in America – the Cherokee Indian Nation – I was fascinated by the Dayak people’s slash-and-burn practice and developed a soft spot for the unique system. I wanted to know so much more.

Since my journey, outside forces have not been kind to the Dayak people. In the wake of recent bad fire seasons in Kalimantan Borneo, a storyline developed that all human-caused fires were a problem and, as a result, in the dry season, all fires were forbidden by law.

In my opinion, the traditional Dayak people were wronged by this blanket no-fire mandate and on discovering this and being invited to help the Dayak tell their story of fire, I agreed without hesitation. I was trained years ago as a US Forest Service fire fuels-management and prescribed-fire use specialist, so I enjoy staying abreast of fire use and management practices worldwide.

The Dayak people showed me they deeply understand their landscape, weather and wildfire behavior. The terrain is a combination of forest and steep mountainsides, and the areas to be burned are filled with heavy fuel loads of slashed, cured bamboo alongside light highly flammable fuels; fires could easily escape if not well managed.

Center firing along the top of a steep incline with a heavy fuel load; this is a step in Dayak people’s traditional ignition technique to create a convective pull and control later firing operations. Photo Michael Hill

Watching, then helping the Dayak people burn, I felt the magic of generations of Dayak people as they shared with me their knowledge, experience, and wisdom about what wildfire can do and how to respect its dangers.

Tactics used by the Dayak people to manage fires include months of preparation of a burn site by slashing fuels to pretreat and cure them, cutting, burning, and scraping fire line perimeters that are adjusted to control changing fuel conditions, slope, and locations where a fire could breach containment lines.

Fire tools are made on the spot for single use from bamboo, water is gathered to be on standby, allied families work as a team, and every factor is carefully planned.

The Dayak people’s traditional fire management is held to an extremely high professional standard because there is so much at stake. The target is to make no mistakes, because anyone hurt would be a family member, and if a fire should escape and burn another’s land, tribal law indicates the loser of the fire must pay the damage cost, which would lead to problems retaining the old ways of fire and rice with the Indonesian government.

I watched the Dayak adjust firing patterns on burn sites of medium-to-steep complexity, but I was especially interested in the challenging ignitions across steep ground, which demonstrated knowledge and fire skills.

During one burn on a steep slope, experienced men carried fire across the top of a mountain to slowly burn a portion of the site to build in an upper-level buffer for a future massive firing event down below, while being careful not to place too much hot fire at once that could run up and against the upper fire line.

An example of Dayak tactical use of a fire effects to reinforce fire control line in steep terrain. Photo Michael Hill.

The landowner always acts as the burn boss, staging participating families with their water containers and bamboo scraper tools held ready above the burners. The burners work together to hold the upslope fire line perimeters while the ignitions take place below to prevent any ember-driven spot fires above from escaping, or to stop any flaming fire line slopovers that could increase the size of a fire.

Once the top areas of the steep slope burn were more secure with the ever growing, reinforced burned out buffers, I watched the burners slowly carry more fire down along the extreme mountain inclines, expertly building in depth and safety.

I watched the burners climb halfway down the mountainsides across from the flames they had lit, where the firing would be halted; following steep slopes to the right, the ignition teams moved across the rugged mountainsides to start a new fresh fire, safely protected from its spreading higher and to the left by the previously burned buffer. Slowly and carefully the burners created larger safety zones across the upper portions of the steep mountainous sites.

The next firing was positioned to slowly eat down into the center of massive, potentially explosive, steep, thick, cured, cut and dried bamboo fields.

The ignitors returned after lighting the center fires to the burn’s right flank, with their center fuels strongly alight. On this flank, for more protection, the burners used their bamboo ignitions poles with tips alight to carry a strip of fire down steep slopes along the interior edge of preexisting fire trails. The burners touched their poles strategically here and there to the cut bamboo plants inside the fire line to create new ignitions and reinforce the perimeter control lines with a long strip of flames.

The effect of these tactics was a controlled lighting pattern that soon became a flaming mountainside that pulled in smaller, newly lit flank flames in a long line. Dried bamboo was consumed as the fire and its heat were pulled inward toward the much hotter center fires, quickly creating a massively reinforced fire line protecting the whole right flank of the field.

I witnessed other tactics, such as fire being used to reinforce control lines before a burn. I saw fire used in dot ignition applications, strategically placed along the bottom of steep and dangerous mountain slopes that were piled high with even more dried fuels that worked to drive flames across whole hillsides horizontally, in powerful walls of flames.

The Dayak people have rules about burning; men are the wildfire-use ignitors while women and children build fire lines around new fields, slashing the bamboo and other fuels to the ground to cure in the hot sun for months to be ready to be consumed by fire. Women and children hold the fire line defensive positions during the actual burns.

Dayak fires are first ignited by a landowner with a cigarette lighter (a very non-traditional tool), but after the fire takes hold, longer bamboo sticks are used to pick up and carry flames forward and out to pre-selected forest ignition locations.

Another recent addition along with cigarette lighters to the traditional Dayak firing kit is a hard-shell plastic backpack pesticide pump, temporarily repurposed and used as water-spraying firefighting pumps.

In my opinion, the Dayak people’s valuable but threatened traditional fire skills, and their wealth of knowledge and wisdom is a critically important resource. The Dayak people’s specialty knowledge of wildfire behavior and use is a treasure to humanity and is especially valuable considering extremes due to climate change.

Traditional cultures such as the Dayak people face unprecedented changes brought from powerful forces: the lure of money; technology, and globalization. One hundred years ago, the Dayak people could have escaped newcomers and government rules in their lands by retreating deeper into the forest, but this is no longer an option.

Around the mountainous Borneo community of Loksado, where the Dayak continue burning (for now), the traditional people are asking simply to be able to keep their burning and their rice cultivation; without this cycle, their treasured way of life cannot continue.

Preventing the Dayak people from burning, even for just a brief few seasons, will have a serious impact on their deep wildfire knowledge. If the Dayak people’s cultural treasure of knowledge is lost, some of their information might be able to be later collected and shared with others, but it will never be as complete as it is now.

The Dayak people told me they would be willing and interested in sharing their fire knowledge with the world. The Dayak need only to be approached to do so by wildfire researchers from international fire agencies, and not just academics who might wish to squirrel away their valuable information for the promotion of their own careers.

In return, the Dayak people told me, they wish only to be valued as a people and a culture uniquely empowered by their fire knowledge built across countless generations.

For the Dayak people’s valuable fire-use knowledge to remain, it must stay fresh and current. The Dayak people must be allowed to continue their cycle of fire and rice, even if only within their mountainous forest sanctuary setting of the Loksado region. Retaining fire knowledge comes with currency; as one traditional elder said, without this currency and historic fire knowledge, “the Dayak will be nothing.”

This Dayak elder explained that the people know well: “Fire can be dangerous. We must be careful with the fire.”

[This article first appeared in Wildfire magazine.]

Michael Hill began this journey in the 1980s as an American wildfire firefighter, and across his career worked as a hotshot and smokejumper. For many years Hill has been, and still is, deeply interested in Indonesia’s wildfires. He serves as an associate editor for Wildfire magazine and hosts a YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@ TalkingWildfireWithMichaelHill.

How the Eaton Fire destroyed a delicate truce over Altadena’s future

Guest WriterMarch 5, 2025March 7, 2025California, United States1 Comment

The challenge of post-fire recovery is one faced by communities around the world. Terms like “build back better” and “managed retreat” are often heard, but what do they mean for people complex making decisions on the ground? Here is the emerging story of just one community. This story, written by Jake Bittle, was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.”

Less than a month before the Eaton Fire engulfed Altadena, longtime residents thought they’d finally resolved a bruising debate over the California suburb’s future.

Eaton Fire Aftermath. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images via Grist

For months they’d debated a Los Angeles County government plan poised to dramatically alter the character of the quiet community of just over 40,000 people, which sits at the edge of the Angeles National Forest. The plan limited construction in Altadena’s fire-prone foothills and simultaneously increased buildable density in its commercial corridors, allowing for hundreds of new housing units in the flat downtown area. It promised to both relieve the region’s critical housing shortage and also reduce wildfire risk accelerated by climate change.

In prickly public meetings and press statements, prominent residents staked out opposing positions. One side was represented by Michael Bicay, a retired NASA scientist who has for decades opposed construction in the Altadena hills on ecological grounds. When county officials arrived with their plan to add population density in Altadena, Bicay was in the middle of a campaign to stop a proposed prep school sports complex in the hills. He used the rezoning as an occasion to push for limits on future development on the community’s wildland edges.

Simultaneously, however, he recognized that Altadena had a role to play in mitigating L.A.’s sky-high housing prices — the county faces a shortage of about half a million affordable homes — which could be achieved by building more apartments along Altadena’s commercial corridors, many blocks away from the tinderbox in the hills.

On the other side of the debate was another longtime resident, Alan Zorthian, who owns a 50-acre artists’ colony in the foothills. Zorthian’s father Jirayr, a famous bohemian artist who hosted parties for luminaries like Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, built the colony into a local curiosity and tourist attraction in the decades before his death in 2004, constructing idiosyncratic homes and sheds out of colored stone and scrap metal.

Faced with the prospect of a downzoning in the hills, the younger Zorthian and other nearby landowners fought back against what they called “regulatory taking” that could devalue their property by limiting possibilities for future development. At the same time, though, the landowners argued that new apartments in the commercial areas would mar Altadena’s historic character. The community was home to Queen Anne-style mansions like the famed Andrew McNally House as well as several exemplars of mid-century modernist architecture.

After months of debate, Bicay’s side won. In December, the county voted the plan forward, signaling a retreat from Altadena’s foothills and a commitment to development in its more urban core. But the timing could not have been worse: Just a few weeks later, the Eaton Fire tore through the foothills, incinerating more than 9,000 homes and ravaging not only the town’s recognized fire zones but its commercial flatlands as well. The blaze was one of the worst urban firestorms in United States history: Together with the Palisades Fire that struck the western part of Los Angeles County simultaneously, it has caused at least $95 billion in damages.

Alan Zorthian talks on the phone while he examines the ruins of the Zorthian Ranch, an artists’ colony in the Altadena foothills. Jake Bittle / Grist

As Altadena begins to rebuild, residents and local officials are fearful that the once-affordable neighborhood will see rents spike and a hollowing out of its middle and working class. Real estate speculators have already descended on the area making lowball cash offers to fire victims, including Black families who lack the savings and insurance coverage to get back the homes they’ve had for generations. Some locals now worry that the county’s plan to open up Altadena for new construction, which was controversial even before the fire, could attract a rush of new development that will hasten this process of what some scholars call “climate gentrification.”

To thread this needle, local officials will have to look beyond the traditional housing debate in the United States. Most development debates in Los Angeles and other big cities pit NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) residents who oppose the disruption of new construction against YIMBY (“Yes In My Backyard”) advocates who want to bring down housing costs by allowing the construction of as many new housing units as possible. Altadena’s divide is not so simple: Both the Bicay and Zorthian factions are simultaneously for and against new development in the town — they just have opposite views on where and how it should happen.

Sudden disasters fueled by climate change only complicate matters further. Altadena must now balance a need to shift its population away from its wildland edges, state and county policies pushing it to add housing capacity overall, and the demands of residents who want to return to their homes — homes that have burned down once and may well burn again in the future.

“We’re talking out of both sides of our mouth right now,” said Bicay. “I think it’s OK to [say] that we’re going to have a lower density in Altadena in the future. But the county, driven by the state, is allowing people to build. So there are going to be some tough decisions.”

The county’s zoning revision in Altadena was part of a broader effort to promote new housing development and reduce hazard risk. (About 15 percent of the county’s land area is classified as vulnerable to wildfire.) Los Angeles County controls 2,600 square miles of land in the region — everything that isn’t part of an incorporated city like Pasadena, Burbank, or the city of L.A. itself. This patchwork unincorporated territory is home to around a million people and includes dense neighborhoods near the Pacific Ocean as well as huge swaths of undeveloped mountain range.

As county planners confront both a housing crisis and a climate crisis, they are facing a difficult paradox. California requires them to enable the construction of thousands of new homes under a decades-old planning law, but they can’t let people build in areas prone to fire or flooding, or in protected nature areas. The housing demand in the region is so great, and the risk of disaster so widespread, that the county has no choice but to loosen zoning rules in safe areas in order to comply with the law — a move that in the United States nearly always triggers protests and pushback from residents opposed to growth in their own neighborhoods.

An aerial view of homes that burned in the Eaton Fire on January 7, 2025, in Altadena, California.
Mario Tama / Getty Images

In the summer of 2023, county officials announced that they would rework Altadena’s decades-old zoning restrictions, which only allowed for single-family homes and a handful of multi-story buildings, to further this housing mandate. After a series of meetings and hearings, none of which drew much attention, planners unveiled a two-pronged proposal. First, the plan would upzone to allow new housing in Altadena’s commercial corridors like Lincoln Avenue, a semi-blighted west end corridor home to little more than a few churches and Mexican restaurants. Second, the proposal would limit development in the fire-prone foothills, where subdivisions have crept up steep slopes alongside forest preserves and hiking trails.

The plan also included a light-touch version of what climate experts often call “managed retreat,” or the government-sponsored relocation away from areas vulnerable to disaster. Most places pursue managed retreat only once it’s too late, for example by buying out homes that flood repeatedly, but the county was hoping to reduce risk over the long run by nudging investment away from the hills and preserving undeveloped space.

At first, the community was warm to the idea of new housing on Altadena’s main streets, according to Amy Bodek, the planning director for Los Angeles County.

“Altadena is very accepting of density in appropriate locations, and is very accepting of new residential units,” she said, describing the community as more amenable to growth than other parts of Los Angeles where the county has worked. “That was a really big benefit to working with that community.”

But that may have only been true of the small subset of engaged residents who bothered to chime in on the zoning plan. A typical Altadena town council election draws a few hundred voters at most — hardly surprising in an unincorporated area that most people see as just another part of sprawling Los Angeles — and just a couple dozen people showed up to the county’s “visioning workshops” about rezoning in the summer of 2023. Bicay pushed other local preservation organizations to support the plan, and that was enough to get it to the final stages.

The former site of Altadena Hardware, a long-running neighborhood business that sat just off Altadena’s main commercial corridor, Lake Avenue. Jake Bittle / Grist

Only in the last months of 2024 did a few outspoken residents start to gin up opposition to the plan, saying the county was devaluing their property by depriving them of the right to build on it. Zorthian joined together with a few other large landowners who had contemplated new construction and a few business owners on commercial corridors who opposed new affordable housing, fearing it might worsen traffic and bring in low-income residents.

“We found out what the plan was doing to the handful of us left who still have larger property, and we don’t want people telling us what to do,” said Zorthian.

The Eaton Fire changed everything. Tearing west through the San Gabriel Mountains toward Altadena, it burned almost the entirety of the Zorthian ranch, including several homes in the artists’ colony and much of Jirayr Zorthian’s remaining artworks. Embers from the fire then spiraled down into the denser flatlands and burned thousands of homes, including all but a few on Bicay’s cul-de-sac block, which sits right at the base of the hills. (The zoning on his own block has not changed, but the surrounding areas have been downzoned.) The blaze then continued west and destroyed a patchwork of homes and businesses along Lincoln Avenue, turning the northern stretches of the corridor into a moonscape.

The question now, in light of the fire, is whether the county’s preexisting plan to bring fire-conscious growth to Altadena is the right path out of this devastation, or whether a surge of new development will hasten gentrification and displacement. The county plan proposed to build new apartments on commercial corridors and direct investment toward the city’s west side, but planners had assumed that these changes would happen over years or even decades. Now, as burned-out residents tangle with real estate speculators in every corner of the town, there’s a chance that this shift could happen in a matter of a year or two. Developers could take advantage of the new zoning to buy up fire victims’ damaged homes and develop large apartment complexes allowed under the new paradigm.

Altadena residents take to the street to protest land developers trying to buy their land immediately following the catastrophic Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, on January 18, 2025.
Katie McTiernan / Anadolu via Getty Images

Some locals who supported the plan are now wary of the upzoning effort. The longtime manager of Mota’s Mexican Restaurant on Lincoln Avenue, Lupe, said she worried that a big developer could buy up multiple lots and build expensive new housing that the former residents of those lots couldn’t afford. (In an interview with Grist, Lupe only provided her first name.) Her own house suffered smoke damage in the fire, and she has been living there while waiting on a contractor to fix it.

“[The county plan] is a good idea, but only if they do it the right way,” she said. “But if people don’t have insurance, and they come and want to take your property to do whatever they want to do, I don’t like that way.”

“Gentrification had already started, and I would think fire would speed it up,” said Veronica Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society and former president of the Altadena town council who represents a census tract on the more disinvested west side of the town, home to many. She pointed to the fact that wine bars and yoga studios had opened in recent years, a change that residents referred to as the “Pasadena-fication” of Altadena.

“I think it’s a good idea to put more housing, but now it’s going to have to be rethought,” she added.

Bodek, the county planner, said she understood the fear of gentrification and vowed that the county will work to prevent developers from snapping up victims’ homes or buying out longtime businesses.

Sisters Emilee and Natalee De Santiago sit together on the front porch of what remains of their home on January 19, 2025, in Altadena, California.
Brandon Bell / Getty Images

But there’s also the matter of fire risk. The Altadena plan discouraged development in the foothills because the state of California classifies them as extremely vulnerable to wildfire, but the Eaton Fire burned almost the entirety of the town, reaching almost 2 miles south of the fire zone and destroying homes that had never been seen as risky.

That means it’s possible the county’s original plan didn’t go far enough. Bicay, who was a lead advocate for the plan, now says it might be necessary to reduce the density of Altadena’s flatlands by between 5 and 10 percent, which would require leaving many burned-out lots empty without rebuilding them. Nic Arnzen, another member of the town council, says the town might consider leaving vacant some lots that residents don’t want to rebuild, carving out a larger zone of open space near the hills. An analysis from the climate risks firm First Street Foundation, which home listers like Zillow use to inform prospective buyers of property hazards, shows a much broader area of fire danger than that shown on maps from Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency.

Zorthian, who opposed the plan, acknowledges that the fire risk in the hills was greater than he had assumed. But he now sees the county plan as hypocritical: If almost the whole town burned down, why should he and a few other large landowners be the only ones with new limits on what they can build?

“It’s going to change the character of Altadena,” he said. “You’re going to have behemoth apartments like you have all over Los Angeles.” For his part, he’s trying not to let the new plan affect him. Once he’s finished cleaning up the scarred ranch, he plans to forge ahead with his vision to erect a museum in honor of his father, and he’s hoping to reacquire some of his father’s works to replace the ones lost in the fire.

Alan Zorthian used a water pump to draw from this swimming pool in his effort to fight the Eaton fire burning through Zorthian Ranch. Numerous structures were destroyed. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Except for supporters like Bicay and opponents like Zorthian, not many Altadena residents engaged in the debate around the county’s original plan. Now, though, a larger agglomeration of residents and community groups have emerged to help steer the town’s rebuild. There are nonprofit associations like Altadena Strong and Rebuild Altadena, existing preservation groups like Altadena Heritage, plus a new foundation run by real estate magnate Rick Caruso and an informal recovery council that Bicay serves on. The county will also convene its own commission.

Other fire-struck areas in the Golden State have dealt with similar questions in recent years, with mixed results. The northern California mountain town of Paradise, for instance, saw a furious debate over where and how to rebuild after the deadly 2018 Camp Fire. It ended up imposing a strict barrier of undeveloped land that now functions as a firebreak. In Santa Rosa, meanwhile, the neighborhood of Coffey Park built back on its original footprint after the 2017 Tubbs Fire, with almost all residents returning to single-family homes that are still vulnerable to wildfire.

Nicole Lambrou, an Altadena resident as well as an architect and urban planner at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, said that local governments vary in their commitment to changing the built environment when they rebuild after a fire.

In many cases, she said, governments bow to political pressure from fire victims, scrap planned reforms and try to get everyone back in their homes as soon as possible. But such a rushed recovery is often bad for the long-term resilience of a community in the wildland-urban interface. Residents end up rebuilding the same flammable homes in the same vulnerable areas, ensuring future losses and more displacement.

“A lot of times the measure of success is, ‘is it a one-to-one rebuild?’ That emphasis on building back what was there as soon as possible makes bypassing existing plans much easier,” she said. On the other hand, she added, the scale of loss in a place like Altadena might force the community and its elected officials to reconsider the assumptions behind their previous commitment to more density — after all, the effort to build more homes is premised on the belief that Altadena is a safe place to live.

“The plan was put in place with a certain baseline of a built environment that is no longer there,” she said.

Bodek, the county planner, says she thinks that building more density in Altadena’s downtown core is still the right move. As she sees it, to declare Altadena too risky would be to write off huge sections of California’s exurban sprawl, much of which sits well within range of flying embers from mountain fires.

“I’m looking at this as a once in a lifetime, catastrophic event,” she said. “If this is going to be the new norm, then everyone, not just Altadena, but everyone in the entire state, is going to have to reassess their land use policies. That could mean the demise of, you know, 200 years of the way of life in California. And I’m not going to go there.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/wildfires/altadena-eaton-fire-recovery-housing-plan/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

A wild ride – my journey through fire, mountains and discovering balance

Guest WriterFebruary 21, 2025Training, United States, Wildland Firefighter2 Comments

We have all come to wildfire with a different story. Here is an unprompted contribution from a reader, with a rich history in fire and life. As part of an occasional Wildfire Today series, and when we could do with a change of pace or a weekend read, here is the story of Ron Guy Jr, currently a wildland fire training coordinator at Tall Timbers.

The first time I fought fire, the world felt alive in a way I’d never experienced before—crackling flames, smoke curling against the spring sky, and the raw smell of scorched earth. Colorado, 21 years old, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, I’d just joined a volunteer fire department, still trying to make sense of the tools in my hands and the heavy bunker gear on my back. The call had come in about an agricultural burn gone sideways—out-of-control flames racing through dry grass and brush, threatening to jump fences into neighboring fields.

When they handed me the pulaski, it didn’t feel awkward or oversized—it felt like destiny. The weight of it in my hands hummed with purpose, as if it had been forged for this very moment. It wasn’t just a tool; it was an extension of me, a weapon against chaos, the hammer of Thor in a rookie’s grip.

Our crew moved quickly, scattered across a smoldering landscape littered with blackened cow patties. My job? Mop up. The seasoned guys smirked as they pointed me toward the smoking remnants of manure, a rookie’s rite of passage, but I didn’t flinch. Every swing of the pulaski, every shove of the shovel, felt like I was answering some ancient call—taming the fire, reclaiming the land.

The work was gritty, humbling, and unrelenting. Every step kicked up ash and dust, the heat biting at my face despite the cool spring air. But somewhere in that chaos, I found clarity. The fire had a rhythm, and so did we, moving in sync as we cut lines, doused embers, and worked to bring order back to the land.

That first fire wasn’t heroic or glamorous—it was dirty, exhausting, and full of cow patties—but it sparked something in me. I didn’t know it then, but those long hours in the smoke were the start of a journey, one that would carve into my soul a lifelong addiction to the wild, unpredictable beauty of fire and the camaraderie forged in its wake. And that was just the beginning.

Ron Guy Jr, Tall Timbers, on a burn in Colorado 2014

Discovering the mountains

I was born and raised in Ohio, where the forests were my playground and the seasons marked the rhythm of life. Growing up in the ’90s, my brothers and I spent every free moment outside, running wild through the woods behind our house. We climbed trees like squirrels, built forts out of fallen branches, and turned creeks into battlegrounds for stick-sword wars. When the leaves fell and the air turned crisp, we swapped games for hunting—following in the footsteps of our father, uncles, and grandfather.

Those woods were where I learned to shoot a gun, track a whitetail, and sit still long enough to let the forest come alive around me. We’d tromp through the underbrush in borrowed camo, carrying shotguns that felt too big for us, chasing deer in the fall and ducks in the winter. It wasn’t just about the hunt; it was about being part of something older than ourselves—a tradition, a rite of passage, a bond forged in cold mornings and quiet moments in tree stands.

I never wanted to be indoors. The hum of fluorescent lights and the artificial glow of TV screens couldn’t compete with the smell of wet leaves, the crack of a twig underfoot, or the thrill of spotting a set of antlers moving through the brush. The woods were my classroom, the wild my teacher, and every scrape and bruise a badge of honor. Those early days shaped me, carving into my soul a deep-rooted need for adventure and the outdoors—a spark that’s never gone out.

By my teenage years, the woods of Ohio started to feel small. My body had grown, but so had my hunger for something bigger. I started trekking into the Appalachians, flipping through the pages of a storybook written in stone and sky. Rock climbing became my new drug of choice—the exhilaration of dangling hundreds of feet off a cliff edge with nothing but calloused fingers and a thin rope to keep me alive. Backpacking was my therapy, days and nights spent wandering the Appalachian Trail, lost in my thoughts and the rhythmic crunch of boots on dirt. One winter, I climbed Mount Washington in a full-on whiteout, a white hell of wind and snow so fierce it could strip the sanity from your soul. And I loved every second of it.

But the Appalachians, wild as they were, couldn’t hold me forever. At 21, I left Ohio in search of something grander. The Rocky Mountains called to me, their jagged peaks slicing into the clouds like the spine of some ancient beast. Colorado became my new playground. I climbed 14ers, those mythical mountains towering over 14,000 feet. I shredded powder on snowboards and skis at resorts like Vail, where the snow was champagne-soft, and the air was as thin as a razor’s edge. Mountain biking through wildflower-laden trails and scaling vertical rock faces became my daily rituals. Life was raw, thrilling, and utterly intoxicating.

Fighting fire

I started out as a volunteer firefighter with a small-town Volunteer Fire Department, the kind of place where the firehouse doors were always open, and every call was answered by someone you knew. The pager on my hip became an extension of me, its shrill tone snapping me to attention at all hours. At first, it was a blur of training courses—swift water rescue, technical rope rescue, EMT-B. I learned to tie knots that could hold the weight of a truck and how to keep calm when someone’s life depended on it. We rappelled off bridges, waded chest-deep in icy rivers, and even practiced crevasse rescue, though I figured those skills were more suited to the Rockies than the Midwest. Every class felt like a new key unlocking a door to a world I’d barely begun to understand.

But for all the adrenaline and camaraderie, something was missing. Most of our calls were medical runs or the occasional car fire—not the roaring infernos I’d imagined when I first pulled on my turnout gear. One day, between drills, I sat down with my captain, a grizzled veteran who’d seen more fire than I could fathom. He’d spent years as a hotshot in California, battling blazes in places where the sky turned orange and the air itself felt combustible.

I asked him what it was like, and his eyes lit up as he described the rush of digging line, the roar of a crown fire racing uphill, and the unbreakable bonds forged on the fireline. “If you really want to fight fire,” he told me, “not just run medical calls, you’ve got to go west. You’ve got to be a wildland firefighter.”

Those words stuck with me. Fighting fire wasn’t just a job—it was a calling, a test of grit and endurance against something primal and unforgiving. I didn’t know it then, but that conversation was the spark. The next step was clear. If I wanted to trade medical bags for a pulaski and sirens for the roar of wildfire, I’d have to chase the flames to where they burned hottest.

When I decided to go west, I didn’t stop at the Pacific Coast—I went as far as I could go, all the way to Alaska. The land of endless summer daylight and fire seasons that stretched across millions of acres. I joined the Northstar Fire Crew, a feeder crew for the Midnight Suns and Chena Hotshots, the two elite Interagency Hotshot Crews in the state. The Northstars wasn’t just a fire crew—it was bootcamp and Survivor rolled into one. They weren’t just training firefighters; they were breeding hotshots, testing us in ways I never imagined, weeding out the weak and hardening the strong.

Every day was a grind. We worked long hours cutting line, hauling gear, and hiking through some of the most unforgiving terrain I’d ever seen. Alaska doesn’t care about your comfort—it’s a place that demands respect, where the fire is relentless, the mosquitoes are legendary, and the wilderness stretches farther than the eye can see. If the grueling pace wasn’t enough, we had weekly reviews out on the fireline. The leadership would call us together, go through each person’s performance, and then someone would be sent packing—flown out by helicopter from the middle of nowhere. It didn’t matter how remote we were or how hard they’d worked. If you didn’t meet hotshot standards, you were gone.

Those reviews kept us sharp. Every swing of the tool, every cut, every step—it all mattered. I pushed myself harder than I ever had, not just to stay, but to prove I belonged. By the end of that first wildfire season, I’d made it through. I wasn’t just surviving anymore; I was thriving. That fall, I earned my spot on the Midnight Suns, stepping into the ranks of some of the toughest firefighters in the nation.

That’s where I learned what it truly meant to be a hotshot, fighting fire in the most unforgiving conditions imaginable. Long hikes through tundra, carrying 50-pound packs across bogs that threatened to swallow you whole, and cutting line for hours under the midnight sun. Alaska wasn’t just a proving ground—it was a crucible, and it forged me into something stronger than I ever thought I could be.

I stayed on hand crews my entire career—ground pounder for life. After my time on the Midnight Suns, I shifted to a Wildland Fire Module, where we specialized in fire use and backcountry operations. It was a different pace, but the work still demanded grit and precision, lighting prescribed burns in remote areas or monitoring fires that were too rugged or dangerous for traditional suppression crews. From there, I moved to a prescribed fire crew, trading the chaos of wildfire for the controlled intensity of setting fires to restore landscapes. Every burn felt like a chess game against nature, balancing fire behavior, weather, and the land’s needs.

Eventually, I found myself on a Type 2 IA crew—back to the grind of initial attack, where you live and die by your speed, teamwork, and ability to adapt. Helicopter bucket drops or sawyers ahead of us, boots on the ground, digging line and holding fire in some of the toughest conditions imaginable. I loved it. Whether it was holding the torch, swinging a pulaski, or scouting the next line, I was exactly where I was meant to be—on the ground, in the thick of it, shoulder to shoulder with my crew. A frontline leader. A squad boss. That was the heartbeat of my career, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. For 15 years, I chased flames across the country, from the deserts of Arizona to the tundra of Alaska. The life on a handcrew is not for the faint of heart—long days, short nights, and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that most people never experience. We slept under the stars more often than not, the ground our bed and the sky our blanket. But there’s something pure about that kind of life, something that strips away all the noise and leaves you with nothing but the essentials: grit, sweat, and a fierce love for the land you’re fighting to protect.

Eventually, I found my way to Tall Timbers Research Station in Florida, where I now serve as a training coordinator, sharing everything I’ve learned about fire with the next generation of practitioners. My focus has shifted from fighting fire to teaching about it—leading courses, mentoring future firefighters, and instructing practitioners on the art and science of prescribed burning.

Fire is a tool. When used with intention, it shapes ecosystems, restores balance, and breathes life into landscapes that depend on its renewal. It’s a delicate craft—a kind of alchemy that transforms destruction into growth—and it’s one I’ve come to respect deeply. Now, my role isn’t just to ignite the land but to ignite the minds of those who will carry this work forward, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to wield fire as a force for good.

Finding balance

When I stand in front of a class of future fire practitioners, I tell them that there are so many ways into fire—it doesn’t have to be the federal route, and it doesn’t have to mean boots on the ground. If they do choose the federal path, I remind them that they don’t need to chase the hotshot dream if it’s not what drives them. Yes, hotshots see the most intense fire activity, and yes, they do things most people can’t even imagine, but that life isn’t for everyone. Hotshots are built different. Hand crew personnel are built different. Wildland firefighters, as a whole, are built different than structure firefighters. The key is to find what fuels your fire—whether it’s running saws on a crew, lighting drip torches, flying drones, or coordinating behind the scenes.

Students tell me it’s hard to find work-life balance, and I’m honest with them—it is. On a crew, fire becomes your life. You eat, sleep, and breathe it for months on end. That’s the reality of this work, and it’s not for everyone. If you want a life outside of fire, you need to pick a role that allows for balance. There are so many ways to fight fire while carving out a career that won’t burn you out. The future of fire doesn’t just need people who can dig line and carry heavy packs—it needs thinkers, planners, and leaders who can sustain the mission for decades.

Stepping away from being a primary firefighter wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one. My daughters mean more to me than chasing spot fires outside the line ever could. Fire season is relentless—long days, weeks away, missing birthdays and milestones. I didn’t want to miss any more. Being present for my family became my priority, and I knew I had to find a way to balance what I love with who I love.

Now, as a training coordinator, I can still contribute to the fire community that shaped me. I can pass on the knowledge and experience I’ve gained to those stepping into the field, helping them navigate their own journeys. I still feel the pulse of fire in my veins, but I’ve found a way to honor it while keeping my family at the center of my life. I’ve traded the frontlines for a role that lets me guide, teach, and support—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.It’s been a journey of grit, growth, and purpose, marked by moments of intensity, camaraderie, and transformation. Fire has taught me patience, resilience, and humility—qualities I now pass on to those stepping into this world for the first time.

As I look back, I see the threads that tie it all together: the lessons learned in the woods with my brothers, the early calls with the VFD, the relentless grind of hotshot life, and the quieter, deliberate craft of prescribed fire. Each step prepared me for this role, where my job isn’t just to teach but to inspire, to show students the many paths they can take and help them find the one that fits their fire.

The future of fire lies in their hands now, and I see the spark in their eyes. They are eager, determined, and ready to carry the weight of this responsibility. I tell them that fire is more than a job—it’s a calling, a lifelong commitment to something bigger than yourself. And while the work is hard and often unforgiving, it’s also deeply rewarding. If they can find their place in it, whether on the ground or in the air, behind the wheel or behind a desk, they’ll discover what I did: fire doesn’t just consume—it transforms.

This isn’t the end of my story—it’s just a new chapter. And as I step back to guide others, I know that the flame will burn brighter and stronger in their hands, carrying forward the work that began long before me and will continue long after I’m gone.

By Ron Guy Jr, MS

Wildland Fire Training Coordinator

Private Lands Fire Initiative, Tall Timbers

The open wounds of Pedrógão Grande

Guest WriterFebruary 16, 2025Prevention, Wildfire1 Comment

This article first appeared in Wildfire magazine.

The Pedrógão Grande mega fire of June 2017 shaped a region by tragedy, causing profound human consequences that have left people battling their own memories, questioning their safety and working through trauma.

Lily Mayers writes on how the lives of those touched by Portugal’s worst mega fire have changed since the smoke cleared.

The fire storm’s intensity melted skin off hands and feet, liquified glass windows and reduced standing signs to puddles of metal. The ferocious wind whipped heat up from the burning forests, thrusting flames forward before crashing them down on the small towns dotted across Portugal’s central region, suffocating the area in thick black smoke.

On the afternoon of Saturday, June 17, 2017, a complex of at least five wildfires ignited, spread and merged across 11 small towns surrounding the municipality of Pedrógão Grande in Central Portugal creating an unstoppable and catastrophic fire event. Sixty-four people died and 250 were injured. Over five days more than 46,000 hectares of land were destroyed. The fire struck territory carpeted by highly flammable, abandoned pine and eucalyptus plantations at a time of prolonged drought and enduring heat waves. The major triggers were found to be contact between vegetation and a 25 kV electrical line as well as lightning strikes.

Aerial view of a forest area between the villages of Pobrais and Nodeirinho, in the municipality of Pedrógão Grande, in the central region of Portugal.

Volunteer firefighter Rui Rosinha, 46, was called in as reinforcement. He was driving to one of the emerging spot fires when his team’s truck collided with a car on the N-236 highway near Pobrais, southeast of Coimbra. The crash stranded them on the side of the road and trapped the three unconscious passengers of the car. As the firefighters struggled unsuccessfully to free the passengers from the wreckage, the wind, radiation and heat from the approaching fire became unbearable. They were forced to save themselves and leave the passengers behind. Huddled together on a small island junction of raised concrete in the middle of the highway, Rui and his four colleagues then endured an hour of exposure to flames, heat, cyclonic winds and the thrashing of airborne debris.

“We experienced temperatures that seemed impossible,” Rui said “The radiation came in waves. I felt it as if it were extreme waves of heat, I remember not just once, but many times the impact and pain, as it hit my body.”

Though severely burned, the group was able to successfully shelter three adults and a child on the same junction. When help finally arrived Rui and the others were driven to medical centers before being airlifted to hospital and that’s the last thing he remembers.

“If ever there was a hell on earth, for me it was there.”

The fire moved at unbelievable ferocity, with more than 4400 hectares burned in a single hour, violently accelerated by intense wind gusts, emitting enough energy to propel itself and exceed the capacity to be extinguished within four hours of igniting. The severe speed of the fire, which by nightfall was advancing at 15 kilometers an hour, outpaced evacuation orders and knocked out communication networks, trapping hundreds and killing dozens in their cars as they fled on the N-236 highway.

It was the worst mega fire in Portugal’s history. As a result of the disaster, family members of those who died and others who were seriously injured were compensated from a 2.5-million-euro support fund. A complete reform of land management legislation was also prompted including the introduction of a new 10-meter clearing rule between roads and vegetation, the banning of new eucalyptus plantings and a shift away from purely reactive firefighting to prevention investment. The reach of the Pedrógão Grande mega fire has left physical, psychological and generational scars, altering the social fabric of the small communities forever.

How have the lives of those touched by Portugal’s worst mega fire changed since the smoke cleared?

RUI

Almost three months after the fire, Rui awoke from a coma to a new reality. He had suffered debilitating burns to his hands, back and feet, respiratory problems as well as partial paralysis to his left side due to injuries in a nerve plexus making him wheelchair dependent.

“Those first nights, when I began to realize what had happened and when I began to understand my body and what was happening to me, those first nights were horrible.” He pleaded for psychological help as he grappled with suicidal thoughts, “I saw that I didn’t have the capacity to deal with it [alone].”

Thrust into this new reality beside him was his family.

Rui’s distraught but resilient wife, Marina, 45, had anguished through the months he was in a coma with daily drives to the hospital two hours away and when he woke she became his full-time caregiver. His two young sons, Antonio and Francisco, 12 and nine at the time, were confronted by a jarring role reversal in prematurely being the able men and joint caregivers of the house. Among these harrowing realizations for Rui was that his close childhood friend and colleague with him in the fire, Gonçalo Conceição, hadn’t survived. Rui says the guilt of surviving when his friend didn’t and not being able to save the passengers of the car, are two of the most complex psychological hurdles he is working on overcoming.

“I’m managing to approach and exorcize some ghosts and it is an almost permanent mourning to face traumas and talk about certain subjects that were taboo for me or at least I couldn’t face it.” Over the years, Rui has been able to reconcile and overcome parts of the trauma in a process that he says will never end, just forever evolve.

“These are the steps I am taking, that I am achieving to feel more at peace with myself and be at peace with others too.”

Rui comes from a family of firefighters. With reduced mobility however he has been transferred away from active duties after 28 years of service and now the Castanheira de Pêra fire brigade, once a second home to his family, is a place he feels uncomfortable and alien within. Despite everything his family has been through, both his sons dream of pursuing the family tradition. For now, it’s a dream Rui and his wife are conflicted in supporting.

ANA

Some see daily reminders of the fire written on their bodies, while others face stubborn mental barriers in evolving past June 17. Ana Luisa Bernardo, 51, lost both her mother and father, Maria, 71, and Manuel, 80 in the fire. Their car crashed on the shoulder of a road as they fled the town of Sarzedas de São Pedro.

“The descriptions from people were that the sky suddenly turned dark and they couldn’t see anything. So, I believe he didn’t realize that the turn was right there on a steep slope,” said Ana. Having worked as a diagnostic and therapeutic technician in hospitals for 25 years, she says not being able to save her parents brings immense pain, “Every day I still think about the subject. I can’t dissociate.”

For two years Ana was so paralyzed by the pain of losing her parents she was unable to enter their family home. She would visit it every weekend and clean the lower patio but not cross the threshold. Even now, Ana is still gradually sorting her parent’s belongings, a journey her daughter Sátia, 16, is helping her through. “What I’m trying to do is triage only what brings back good memories, what’s bad is not worth keeping. It’s very delicate.”

From what was already a network of small towns where most people are known to one another, now exists a new subcommunity forged by their shared grief and loss after the fire. This web of survivors refer to each other as a family who speak the same language of experience. “We share the same pain, some in one way, others in another,” Ana said of one of the tragic event’s rare silver linings.

But from the community the fire created, it also took away. Many of the towns affected haven’t been able to return to the bustling places they once were. Ana says in Sarzedas de São Pedro, the change is palpable.

DEOLINDA AND ANTONIO

Deolinda Henriques Simões and Antonio Dias Gonçalves work on their property in Nodeirnho. The manual labor involves pulling weeds, clearing gutters and cutting back the forest’s understory, to reduce the chances of another fire. Photo: *Paulo Nunes dos Santos for Sonda Internacional*.

Retired couple Deolinda Henriques Simões, 55, and Antonio Dias Gonçalves, 80, spend their weekends in the tiny town of Nodeirnho. The day before the fire struck, the renovations of their weekend home were finished. They escaped just in time but “in the blink of an eye” their new home was destroyed before they could enjoy it.

Once it was safe to return to the smoldering town, they drove back and found the remains of their home and all their life savings destroyed beyond repair. “All the windows and doors were wooden in the old-fashioned way. I remember getting there, I only saw the walls and that’s what happened. So much so that the beams that I had placed in aluminum were all crammed together like snails,” said Deolinda.

It is estimated more than 1,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed in the fire resulting in damages of up to 200 million euros. The Portuguese government committed to providing 30 million euros for the reconstruction of first homes. But for Deolinda and Antonio their old home had been registered as dilapidated by the previous owner, unbeknown to them, so it wasn’t eligible for insurance cover or government aid. The couple were left with nothing and had to wait three years before investing again. They have now bought around the corner from their old destroyed home but their new view frames their past struggles.

“Unfortunately, we can see the skeleton of the old house, which is just the torn walls, there’s nothing left.” Antonio says their new home has the best insurance they could get.

The couple, now acutely aware of what fuels a mega fire, use their weekends to clear the land around their new home. The manual labor involves pulling weeds, clearing gutters and cutting back the forest’s understory. It’s back-breaking work for the couple who are noticing the difficulty their age brings to the task but are limited by the cost of outsourcing it.

CÉU

Their town of Nodeirnho was once described as a lively place filled with young families and weekenders. But when the June 17 fire came through it killed 11 of the town’s 50 residents. Those who remain still live among burned houses, hauntingly permanent reminders of the night their neighbors died.

Maria do Céu Silva, 52, is one of them. Céu (as she’s known) survived the fire by sheltering in the water tank beside her home with a dozen others. She is lucky to have lived, but it was at a cost. She and the others with her had to endure the sounds of their neighbors dying within earshot. “We heard screams and cars crashing, and then we realized there were a lot of people in the village who were already dead. We never thought there would be so many. It was horrible but we couldn’t do anything. We didn’t have the means to help.”

The fire and the evidence of its destruction across the town mean residents like Céu are trapped in a time capsule, unable to move forward. “I used to actually be a very fun person, and I think that since that happened, I’m not. Because we leave the house, I speak for myself and go to my work and pass by several places where victims died. It marks us every day no matter how much we go through and forget, we remember every day.”

Among the town’s victims were two children aged three and four, and several people in their 30s. Céu says much like in Sarzedas de São Pedro, they had filled the town with activity and dynamism. Now the chemistry of the tiny village has changed dramatically. Deathly quiet and still ash-stained, it feels ghostly with virtually no passing foot or car traffic. Céu says many of the remaining population are elderly and mostly stay inside their homes. In summer, when the wind picks up Céu fears fire will return to the town.

GONÇALO

Monuments dedicated to the victims of the Pedrógão Grande fire are scattered across the region. Written on all of them is the name of the only firefighter who died, Gonçalo Fernando Correia Conceição. The charismatic and well-loved firefighter was known as “Assa” or “Dr. Assa” (from the Portuguese assar, meaning to grill) due to his renowned barbequing skills and restaurant of the same name.

The 39-year-old is missed by many within the community he was so involved in, but none feel the loss more than his family. Years on from the fire, his parents strain to speak through the grief. They, and Assa’s 17-year-old son David, live with the consequences of his selfless decision to routinely run into danger to help others, “It’s the life he chose, that’s it. It was his way to help others.” said his father, Joaquim Domingos da Conceição, 69.

Maria da Conceição, 63, grips a portrait of her son, Gonçalo Fernando Correia da Conceição, the only firefighter to die during Portugal’s Pedrógão Grande mega fire of 2017. Gonçalo was severely injured after he and his team became trapped in the flames during the extinction operation. Six years after the fire, Maria remains grief stricken by the loss of her son who was well-loved by the Castanheira de Pêra community. Photo: *Paulo Nunes dos Santos for Sonda Internacional*.

Hotelier Joaquim and his wife, Maria da Conceição, 63, have kept their son’s house in pristine condition in the hopes their grandson, who had to move away after Assa’s death, will someday return to the town and take over his father’s restaurant. Like many families, they experienced a double desolation when the death of a loved one prompted other family members to move away.

Inside Joaquim and Maria’s lakeside hotel in Castanheira de Pêra a huge quote has been painted on the wall of the dining hall, it reads, ‘May my presence never be forgotten in my absence! Thank you friends. – Dr. Assa.’ His parents say they have no fear their son will ever be forgotten.

THE PEDROGAO GRANDE MEGA FIRE

The Pedrógão Grande mega fire shaped a region by tragedy, causing profound human consequences that have left scores of people battling their own memories, questioning their safety and working through trauma. For those, the fire is unfathomable to forget. But in the wider community others are eager to leave it in the past and focus on the future.

While these communities oscillate between the two outlooks, the vegetation surrounding them has been quietly regrowing. Now the build-up has reached levels higher than before the fire and many fear history could repeat when the region almost inevitably faces future weather extremes.

Government forestry workers are attentively cutting back trees close to roads and houses while homeowners like Deolinda and Antonio race tirelessly against the growth of the pines closing in around them. Looking at the dense forests threaded throughout his town Joaquim Conceição says the work doesn’t go far enough, “Another similar tragedy could happen tomorrow,” he said. Meanwhile, the graves of Ana Bernardo’s parents lay claustrophobically encircled by the same thick vegetation that accelerated the fire that caused their deaths.

Lily Mayers is a freelance journalist from Sydney, Australia, based in Madrid, Spain. Mayers’ career began in television and radio news for Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC. Since moving to Spain in 2020, Mayers’ work has focused on the long-form coverage of world news and current affairs.

This report was developed with the support of Journalism fund Europe.

New strategy needed for extreme wildfires

Guest WriterFebruary 10, 2025Australia, Fire behavior, Prescribed FireLeave a comment

This article first appeared in Wildfire magazine.

The author, Rick McRae, argues that the impacts of climate change must be better included in wildfire management strategies. McRae is an adjunct professor with the Bushfire Research Group at UNSW Canberra.

After a career as an ecologist, senior emergency manager, and bushfire scientist I have a particular view of where climate change is taking us; it is fundamentally based on Australian conditions, but I have an international perspective that is both operational and scientific. A lot of people say a lot about this problem, but too many are saying different things. Who does one listen to, especially if you enjoy your comfort zone? You may disagree with my views, but rather than dismiss them, start a conversation with your colleagues and think about how what I am saying might affect both them and your collective goals. My career and my research has all been aimed at reducing wildfire risks. Here I simplify some topics, and omit a lot of necessary technical detail, but I completely support the outline that I present.

The global collective of fire management wisdom is clearly focused on a fuel-oriented path forward in the face of climate change. The Landscape Fire Governance Framework that arose from the 8th International Wildland Fire Conference in Oporto in May 2023 is the latest element of a global framework. The framework states that fires are getting worse due to a combination of too much wildfire suppression, a lack of investment in fire management, and changes to how communities handle fire on the landscape. A common theme in discussions is the need for more fuel management, either through more fuel reduction burning or a switch to Indigenous practices.

To this end, planning typically includes a focus on risk reduction through hazard reduction via fuel management. Training, equipment, and systems are focused on this system, matched by budget allocations. Satellites show that certain countries produce a lot of smoke from this risk-reduction effort. For normal wildfires, fire services and their communities do a very good job mitigating the risk. (Can this ever be enough?) Climate change is increasing fire danger as the world warms up, and fire services and land managers are correctly adapting to the heightened risks.

At the same time, the world is being severely affected by what are called extreme wildfires, which dangerously couple with the atmosphere above.

It is critical to correctly use the terms normal and extreme: normal fires spread by quasi steady state fire behaviour – if you know the fuel and the terrain, then you largely know what the fire will do; extreme wildfires have one or more blow-up fire events (BUFEs), where the fire couples with the atmosphere and exhibits dynamic fire behaviour, which often involves feedback loops and so the details are largely unpredictable. Figure 1 shows their relationship.

For BUFEs, there is no explicit role for fuel load (beyond the need for a prior fire), indicating that fuel management – central to the framework – is unlikely to be an effective preventative action. We do, however, need to explore how fuel management can be targeted to prevent future dynamic fire escalation. Extreme wildfires do not occur in flashy fuels such as most grasslands: they are mainly a problem in forests and woodlands and they have, in recent years, occurred in new ecosystems (discussed below). (See figure 2.)

When an extreme wildfire couples with the atmosphere after being triggered by dynamic fire behaviour, a BUFE occurs, lasting up to three hours, and typically burning 50 to 100 square kilometres (20 to 40 square miles). With little opportunity for fire suppression the only real incident objective is to save lives. Saving structures may put fire crews at risk for little return. This minority of fires cause the majority of damage.

Figure 1. The relationship between the fire drivers for normal wildfires with quasi-steady state behaviour and the fire drivers for extreme wildfires with dynamic behaviour. The left is quasi-deterministic while the right involves unpredictable feedback loops.

The incident action plan for affected sectors and divisions during a BUFE looks very different to that for a normal fire. Locally appropriate strategies and tactics need to be formulated to help save lives.

There is an archive of decades of high-quality satellite data that is informing many aspects of the challenges associated with extreme fires; it will become increasingly important that we get the full leverage off the datasets involved. The complexity of the changes already underway can be overwhelming. It will be important for end users to make clear what their needs are, and for them to accept the answers produced.

While many authors have used forward-looking climate models to anticipate how climate change will impact fire risks, observations are now showing a far more alarming picture overall.

Fire thunderstorms, called pyroCbs, are the most obvious manifestation of extreme wildfires. A recent study found that there has been no recent global trend in the frequency of pyroCbs. Global pyroCb activity has always been dominated by fires in and around Boreal forests. However, areas such as Australia, South Africa, South America, and the Mediterranean have only recently started having problems with extreme wildfire. Canada, in 2023, experienced the most protracted ever season for extreme wildfires, globally. Australia’s Black Summer was just as prominent with record breaking intensities.

Figure 2. The drivers of fire risk. The “depleted” column is where dynamic fires usually occur.

An important step must follow on from recognition of the wildfire-type dichotomy: operational doctrine must be revisited. As an example, in Australia, the national doctrine for operations in the urban interface lacks any dynamic fire behaviour elements. This document is founded on decades or experience during fire fighting and is state of the art – for normal fires only. What is different? When a BUFE arrives at the urban interface, it is characterised by: (1) a lack of a headfire, with a switch to dense spotting, and a high chance of loss of overall situational awareness; (2) an ember storm (a sea of flowing pea-sized embers flowing over the ground), which is very different to typical ember attack (which is more like a mortar attack); (3) strong turbulence; (4) a darkened sky; and (5) much deeper penetration of the urban edge. Air ops are likely to be impeded.

Also, standard doctrine is often founded on past damaging fires, but key lessons from previous events may need revisiting if, as is often the case, those fires were driven by processes subsequently discovered, such as the key elements of dynamic fire behaviour.

Several past landmark fires have featured descriptions of the fire spreading sideways on the lee face of a ridge. We have seen this in news footage, with chief officers waving their hands sideways during media briefings, or even in official post incident reports. After being identified in 2003 in the Canberra fires, a scientifically validated concept called Vorticity-driven Lateral Spread (VLS) is now known to be the cause. VLS is by far the main cause of forest fire damage in rugged landscapes, globally. Fire service operations based on key lessons learned need to adapt to this. A lookout at a fire where VLS might occur has to be trained to look to the rear at certain landform elements, as opposed to the prior practice of focusing on the headfire. To avoid VLS-driven BUFEs, it may sometimes be an option to burn-out VLS prone areas ahead of the main fire when fuels are too damp to support spotting. Another key instance of the need to rethink is that dynamic fire behaviour is often associated with large air tanker accidents. Climate change is leading to large aircraft flying out of aviation weather into fire weather while climate change is turbo-charging weather close to the ground.

It used to be that different countries had different types of fire, and therefore different operational approaches. Climate change is reducing these differences. I identified a fire near Canberra in 2004 as being foehn-wind driven. Some time after that my collaborators and I wrote a paper on this, introducing Australian firefighters to an idea that has long been a mainstay of training in North America and the Mediterranean Basin. Over the following decade we found only a few good cases of local foehn-wind driven fires. Then during Black Summer, with hundreds of BUFEs, perhaps 50 per cent of those were of this type. That is a massive escalation.

These changes clearly suggest that the world needs a multi-pronged adaptation strategy to climate change’s impacts on wildfire risk. The strategy for normal fire is well understood and must be implemented and continually improved upon. The strategy works better than is acknowledged, because the metrics for success were developed using data from both types of fire. The inclusion of dynamic events with bad outcomes biases the outlook.

In passing, a serious issue arising from lumping all fires together is the mis-training of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems being developed to help mitigate bushfire risks. Just because a fire was attributed as something in a database 25 years ago does not mean that that is correct in today’s thinking. Climate change will not be forgiving to field crews using poor intelligence.

A new strategy is required for rapid adaptation to extreme wildfires. The ongoing escalation suggests a need for the multi-pronged approach to be created as quickly as possible. I have developed a framework for predicting dynamic fire events in the forests of south-east Australia, which aims to show the potential for new thinking (Figure 3). The framework seeks to predict BUFE events using hydrology, remote sensing, and fire ground data in a multi-scaled way.

For the adaptation strategy to work it is necessary to define the following: ownership (by a global body); working membership; protocols; data and accounting needs; professional development protocols; and dissemination channels.

The mandate for climate change adaptation for wildfires might include:

Focussing on extreme wildfires (to complement on-going collaboration on normal wildfires);
Defining, owning, and disseminating research goals;
Providing a hub for research outcomes;
Providing a forum for international exchange of relevant operational lessons;
Maintaining a global overview of wildfire problems and tracking the overview’s evolution;
Rapidly disseminating new information or certified lessons from major fire events.

Figure 3. Two decades of predictive analysis on the potential for pyroCbs in the forests of southeast Australia. PyroCbs (red bars) occur when alerts are generated by the system, either due to temperature anomolies (green bars) or landscape hydrology (blue bars). The orange line clearly shows the impacts of climate change on air temperatures in Canberra, while the purple line shows a more worrying trend for offshore sea-surface temperatures. The difference between the two sets of 12-month average anomalies – the Canberra Dipole (black line) – is critical for BUFE potential. At the peak of Black Summer, Canberra had an extraordinary 12-month average temperature anomaly of 3C. Similar frameworks could work elsewhere.

Students of the evolution of wildfire can look at the references cited in many new wildfire papers and see – from the references alone – where the paper was written and what technical specialty it is from (for both the authors and the journal). However, this Fire Tower of Babel situation is not good enough. In a similar vein, if we are to collaborate on these problems, we must standardise the terminology. The use of alternative terms, and the widespread misuse of others does nothing to aid adaptation –foundation terms such as pyroCb or megafire are key examples – and surely reinforces the previously mentioned issue with the training of machine learning systems.

The wildland fire sector needs to stop being overly distracted by fuel loads, otherwise we will all be affected by extreme wildfires and their impacts on ecosystems, communities, soils, hydrology, biodiversity, traditional practices, and the upper atmosphere – including the ozone layer.

Rick McRae served as a headquarters technical specialist in what evolved to become the ACT Emergency Services Agency in Canberra from 1989 until his recent retirement. He worked in business planning, arson investigation, multi-hazard risk assessment, as planning officer for major incidents, weather specialist, and as a research scientist focusing on extreme wildfires, and especially pyroCbs. McRae has conducted case studies, described new phenomena, and developed predictive tools. He maintains a website that aims to present operationally useful material on extreme wildfires: https://www.highfirerisk.com.au/.

McRae is an adjunct professor with the Bushfire Research Group at University of New South Wales Canberra.

Legal frameworks for firefighters

Guest WriterJanuary 28, 2025February 23, 2025California, Safety, Wildland FirefighterLeave a comment

The laws to protect firefighters are designed to provide a degree of comfort and certainty to those who are out there doing their job in an uncomfortable and uncertain environment. And there is no shortage of law firms looking for new work to ensure firefighters get the support they need. Jackson Ruby, a freelance writer for a California law firm, provides an overview of the legal frameworks that protect firefighters in legal actions.

Firefighters protect lives, property, and the environment from fire, medical emergencies, and disasters. Given their work’s high-risk and fast-paced nature, firefighters often make split-second decisions under extreme conditions. To enable them to perform their duties effectively without undue fear of legal repercussions, various legal frameworks have been established to protect them from lawsuits arising from their actions during an emergency response.

Sovereign Immunity and Qualified Immunity
One of the most significant legal doctrines protecting firefighters is sovereign immunity, which protects government entities and their employees from certain types of lawsuits. Sovereign immunity often extends to firefighters who work for municipal or state governments, protecting them from liability for acts performed within the scope of their employment.
In addition, firefighters in the United States may be protected by qualified immunity, which shields government employees from personal liability unless their actions violate “clearly established” statutory or constitutional rights. Qualified immunity ensures that firefighters are not deterred from performing their duties due to fear of litigation, as long as they act in good faith and within the boundaries of the law.

Good Samaritan Laws
Good Samaritan laws provide immunity from lawsuits to individuals, including firefighters, who render emergency aid in good faith and without gross negligence. For example, if a firefighter administers CPR or uses a defibrillator on an unresponsive person, they are typically protected from legal claims even if the outcome is unfavorable. These laws encourage quick action in emergencies by reducing the risk of legal consequences for well-intentioned efforts.

Statutory Protections
Many states have enacted specific statutes that protect firefighters from lawsuits arising from their official duties. These statutes often provide immunity for discretionary acts performed in the line of duty. For instance, decisions about how to suppress a fire, prioritize rescues, or deploy resources are generally considered discretionary and thus protected. However, these protections usually do not extend to acts of gross negligence, willful misconduct, or actions outside the scope of employment.

Workers’ Compensation Laws
Firefighters who are injured or killed in the line of duty are typically covered under workers’ compensation laws. These laws ensure that injured firefighters or their families receive medical benefits and compensation without the need to prove fault. Workers’ compensation also serves as the exclusive remedy for workplace injuries, preventing lawsuits against employers or coworkers for workplace-related incidents.

Federal Law Protections
Federal laws also play a role in shielding firefighters from legal repercussions. For example, the Volunteer Protection Act (VPA) provides immunity to volunteers, including volunteer firefighters, from liability for harm caused by their actions while performing duties for a nonprofit organization or government entity. The VPA encourages community service by reducing legal risks for volunteers.
Additionally, the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) allows lawsuits against federal employees under certain conditions but provides immunity for discretionary acts performed within the scope of employment. This framework can apply to federal firefighters working for agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service.

Collective Bargaining Agreements and Union Protections
Many firefighters are represented by unions that negotiate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) on their behalf. These agreements often include provisions related to legal representation, indemnification, and procedural protections in cases of lawsuits or disciplinary actions. For example, a firefighter accused of negligence may receive legal defense funded by their employer or union, as stipulated in the CBA.

Limits and Accountability
While legal frameworks provide robust protections for firefighters, they are not absolute. Protections generally do not cover acts of gross negligence, intentional harm, or criminal misconduct. For instance, a firefighter who intentionally sets a fire or acts recklessly, endangering lives, can face legal and criminal consequences. This balance ensures that accountability is maintained while enabling firefighters to perform their duties without undue hesitation.
The legal frameworks protecting firefighters recognize the unique challenges and risks associated with their work. By providing immunity from lawsuits, these laws enable firefighters to act decisively and effectively in emergencies, knowing they are protected from undue legal repercussions. At the same time, these frameworks uphold accountability by excluding acts of gross negligence or intentional wrongdoing from protection. This balance is essential for maintaining public trust and ensuring that firefighters can focus on their critical mission of safeguarding lives and property.

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