A perfect match

By Eric Everson

This mentoring program connects a mentor and mentee with a shared birthday, and a common desire to help colleagues. The outcome was an online resource for the greater wildfire community.

I recently had the good fortune of taking part in the International Association of Wildland Fire’s mentoring program.

I was just a year into my role as science communications specialist with the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange, which is part of the Joint Fire Science Program’s Fire Science Exchange Network.

I had mentored young professionals in my many years with the National Weather Service. In the IAWF mentoring program I was randomly paired with Max Levy, who at the time was working on a wildland fire hand crew for the state of Idaho.

This article is first published in Wildfire Magazine – read the full edition.

To help ensure this six-month mentor-mentee partnership would work for both of us, we were encouraged to have a get-to-know-each-other meeting. That meeting took place on May 29. You are probably wondering about the relevance of the date to the mentoring program and this story. Well, toward the end of our initial productive meeting, during which we agreed to work together over the next six months, I happened to mention that it was my birthday. Remarkably, Max said it was his birthday too. I said we couldn’t be twins because I already have a twin sister, but we could be triplets. And Max countered with the incredible fact that he too was a twin – having a twin brother. What are the odds we would be randomly paired, hold a meeting on our shared birthday, and find out we both had twin siblings? I remember saying we definitely had to work together. And that is exactly what we did.

In our initial meeting, Max indicated he was very interested in community preparedness and resilience. He already had a solid knowledge base on the topic but wanted to expand on it. He also wanted to learn, in general, about experiences others had on wildfires. I knew this was going to be one of my favorite aspects of the mentoring program because I would be learning just as much from Max as he would learn from me.

My background was not in community preparedness and resilience, but I did serve 22 years as an incident meteorologist working on wildfires across the United States. Another aspect of our partnership that I was excited about was that we agreed on the importance of helping other young professionals. One of the goals of the Joint Fire Science Program is to ensure we support the next generation with their growth and knowledge of the fire and forestry community. Even though I worked with the fire and forestry community in my roles with the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange and the National Weather Service, my eyes were opened at a National Cohesive Strategy Workshop as to just how many entities are connected to this community. Max felt strongly we should ensure young professionals are aware of all that is out there for them as they decide on potential career paths. Thus, our goal was to create a resource document with relevant information for a variety of users by the end of our six-month commitment.

Max and I would typically meet once or twice a month, catch up on life and work, share wildfire stories, and talk about the resources we were adding to our document. The document was filled with relevant resources on several topics that would benefit the fire and forestry community, especially young professionals.

Our six months went by quickly and our document was complete. But the story does not end there, thanks to Max’s leadership. Max wanted to take our project to the next level and turn our resource document into an online web resource. And so, our partnership continued beyond the required six months.

Over the next four months, amongst life conversations and career advice, work was done to create the Wildland Fire Resources Library

The library is a centralized hub for the wildland fire community, providing access to valuable resources, opportunities, and information. The content focuses on building community resilience and providing a starting point for young professionals to gain further knowledge of the fire and forestry community. The core topics that can be found on the site include community resilience, fire information, smoke monitoring, climate and weather resources, student assistant programs, employment opportunities, wildfire training, and fire and forestry groups.

We welcome your thoughts about the resource we have put together.

Related article: Finding your mentor

I am grateful the IAWF offers the mentoring program. Young professionals, now more than ever, would greatly benefit from your leadership and guidance. And it will be a wonderful learning experience for you too.

Working with Max has helped in my role with the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange. For that I am extremely lucky and glad I do not have to consider Max as a mentee, but rather a friend.

I am also happy to report Max worked on a helitack crew for the Washington Department of Natural Resources this season, and I look forward to hearing and sharing more wildfire stories with him.

Please check out the IAWF mentoring program and consider making a difference. It can be every bit as good as our May 29 experience!

Wildland Fire Resources Library

The IAWF has an open period for applications twice a year. After the applications are received and reviewed, the IAWF matches the mentors and mentees based on interests and geographic location. The program encourages both face to face mentoring and online remote mentoring, depending on the location of the participants, who can be anyway around the world. A mentoring opportunity is also offered during IAWF conferences.

IAWF Mentoring Program

Eric Evenson is the science communications specialist for the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange. Evenson spent 33 years with the National Weather Service, which included stops in Maine, Montana, Missouri, Idaho, and Vermont. For 22 years, Everson served as an incident meteorologist, communicating critical fire weather information at large wildfire incidents. As an incident meteorologist, Evenson was part of the training cadre and mentored trainees. As a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vermont, Everson was part of the fire weather team communicating and coordinating with the local fire and forest community.

In addition, Everson served as the National Weather Service liaison to the fire science working team of the Northeast Forest Fire Protection Commission. Everson has always enjoyed sharing and communicating scientific information to the fire and forest community and is excited to continue that work by serving those in the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange region.

Finding your Mentor

By Mike DeGrosky

As I was applying to be a mentor for the next round of the IAWF mentoring program, I reflected on what a great member benefit the program is, one that is valuable to mentees and mentors alike.

This article is first published in Wildfire Magazine – read the full edition.

Eric Evenson reinforces this in his article, in which he describes his mentorship experience with his mentee, Max Levy. Evenson is the science communications specialist for the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange. Levy was working on a wildland fire hand crew for the state of Idaho when the two were randomly matched through the IAWF. Evenson describes how he and Levy immediately made a deep and surprisingly personal connection.

I think of mentoring as an act of helping people draw out, reinforce, or affirm their ideal selves and it was fun to read about Evenson and Levy’s relationship that grew out of the IAWF program.

I am increasingly interested in the experiences of mentees, because that perspective seems to be less prevalent. A quick review of the leadership literature reveals that mentoring programs are mostly talked about from the mentors’ perspectives. Coincidentally, I have had conversations with friends and colleagues contemplating whether or not to seek a mentor, which led me to start thinking about what advice I should offer a person seeking a mentor. I knew what advice I had offered in the past but also wanted to see what the current wisdom is among the experts.

I unexpectedly found a fascinating article on the National Institutes of Health website, summarizing the book The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM, edited by Angela Byars-Winston and Maria Lund Dahlberg. I also discovered a cool resource called Mentoring Statistics You Need To Know – 2025 by Grace Winstanely with the organization Mentorloop.

I would counsel any person seeking a mentor to have a solid idea of their needs and motivations beforehand.

Evenson’s Wildfire article, combined with my foray into current thinking on mentoring and mentorship, helped me focus on four key pieces of advice to offer anyone thinking about the benefits of having a mentor.

First, know what you are looking for from a mentoring relationship before seeking a mentor. Are you looking for psychological and emotional support? Help with problem solving? A role model?

Career guidance? Help with goal setting? Skill development? Sponsorship? While mentoring is often idealized, one does not have to look very deeply into the popular business and leadership media to learn that mentees are often left disappointed by the experience. Unsatisfying mentorships are often rooted in the fact that the mentor and the mentee had different expectations of what the relationship might achieve. Knowing that, I would counsel people seeking mentors to have solid ideas of their needs and motivations beforehand.

I recently experienced this when I asked a friend and former colleague to mentor me in an area in which I want to update my knowledge and gain some confidence. My friend, who I expected to readily accept, instead had questions, including “What do you hope to accomplish?” and “Why me?” We typically approach potential mentors because they have life experience and acquired knowledge that can help us grow and accomplish goals. The catch is that experienced and knowledgeable people we trust and admire are very often busy, and busy people want to know that your request will be an effective use of their time. Anyone approaching a potential mentor should be ready to make a case for the desired mentoring arrangement.

I must admit that my friend’s screening questions surprised me, but I soon thought “That’s so smart; my friend has a big job, a young family, lots of interests, and not much spare time.” I imagine that not only did my friend want to make good use of limited time, but also to know that my friend was the right person and would not let me down. I’m glad I was ready to make my case, and I have a new mentor!

My current mentor is 20 years my junior, so the second piece of advice I would offer is to embrace the possibility of mentoring relationships that may seem to be unconventional. In my case, the conventional wisdom that mentors are always the senior individual is not the case. I’d offer that any extended, reciprocal, relationship can evolve into an effective mentoring partnership and that such a partnership can prove mutually beneficial. I think it’s important to remember that the research tells us that most mentorships do not result from a formal ask but evolve from other relationships.

My third piece of advice has been, and will remain, to purposefully seek mentors in both technical disciplines and the interpersonal and human relations dimensions of our work. It is important to understand that the two may not overlap. In other words, you may need more than one mentor.

And finally, I would counsel that anyone, regardless of organizational role or level, can benefit from having a mentor. I always enjoy encountering leaders who are simultaneously mentoring and being mentored. While we often think of mentors as experienced senior leaders and mentees as up-and-comers with potential, the research I’ve seen consistently shows that senior leaders benefit from being mentored.

Mentoring is a vital leadership and career development tool, as reflected by its popularity. According to Mentorloop, most US Fortune 500 companies, including all US Fortune 50 companies, have mentoring programs and 76 per cent of people surveyed think mentors are important.

IAWF members are so fortunate to have access to a formal, industry specific mentoring program as a free member benefit, and I hope members are taking full advantage.

Find more information on the IAWF mentoring program.

Mike DeGrosky is a student of leadership, lifelong learner, mentor and coach, sometimes writer, and recovering fire chief. He taught for the Department of Leadership Studies at Fort Hays State University for 10 years. Follow Mike via LinkedIn.

Wildfire briefing, September 10, 2014

Time-lapse video of Meadow Fire

time-lapse video of the Meadow Fire
Screen grab from the NPS time-lapse video of the Meadow Fire.

The National Park Service has posted a very cool time-lapse video of the early hours of the expansion of the Meadow Fire when it grew from 19 acres to over 700. More information about the Meadow Fire.

“Send the elevator back down”

Mentoring young firefighters who have the potential to become future leaders is one of the more important responsibilities of seasoned wildland firefighters. Of course the same principle applies in other fields as well. The award winning actor Kevin Spacey has been doing this for years through his Kevin Spacey Foundation and by leading workshops to cultivate emerging artists in the performing arts.

In an interview with NBCNews he was asked what motivated him to get involved in mentoring young artists. He said:

Jack Lemmon – who was my mentor – passed along his philosophy of “sending the elevator back down” and so I am continuing to do exactly that through the work of my Foundation.

Happy Camp Fire Complex achieves Megafire status

The huge fire on the Klamath National Forest continues to work its way across the landscape of northwest California. The Incident Management Team reports it has now burned 105,194 acres, crossing what we call the unofficial threshold of 100,000 acres to obtain the Megafire label. The Team is calling it 30 percent contained.

No residences had been damaged or destroyed on the fire until Monday, when two burned in the Scott River Road area. One of those belonged to 75-year old Nancy Hood who has been continuously staffing a fire lookout for 56 years on the Klamath National Forest. A fund has been established to help Ms. Wood in her time of need. We posted more information about the effort earlier today.

Smokejumpers warn about link between climate change and wildfires

A group of seven Montana smokejumpers have written an opinion piece that was published in the Missoulian.

Below are some excerpts:

…Scientists say that climate change has implications for wildfire danger. We believe them. Since the 1980s, Montana’s wildfire season increased by two months while average global temperatures have steadily trended upward. Climate researcher Steve Running has summarized the data this way: “Since 1986, longer, warmer summers have resulted in a fourfold increase of major wildfires and a sixfold increase in the area of forest burned, compared to the period from 1970 to 1986.” – Science, Vol. 13:927 (2006).

Drought caused by warming temperatures exacerbated the recent pine beetle infestation, which is 10 times larger than any previously recorded. Millions of dead trees provide more fuel for fires and create more risk for those on the front lines.

[…]

We know that many Montanans share our concerns about rising fire danger. While aggressive intervention in wildfires will always be needed, we also need prevention strategies – and that means dealing with climate change. Preventing climate change isn’t possible, but limiting climate change is.

Montana has abundant clean energy resources such as wind and solar power that can provide significant statewide economic benefits. We need prevention strategies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to decrease carbon pollution from the largest point sources – coal-fired power plants. We can create good-paying jobs in clean energy. We can protect our climate and our wildlands, and we can save lives, property and jobs in doing so.

Thanks and a hat tip go out to Mike.