#89: Burning Questions: Understanding Fire Management with Lenya Quinn-Davidson

Many of you might recall the dramatic 2020 fire season in the western USA. In California alone, close to 4 million acres burned. Cities were clouded with smoke and unhealthy air for many weeks. I had ash fall at my home in San Jose, CA on several occasions.

But did you know that based on pre-colonial historical estimates, 4 million acres burned would be considered “below average”. How can that be? Does that mean that every summer in the 1700’s had smoke filled air and devastating fires? Spoiler alert: the answer is no.

In today’s episode, we reconcile how it was possible for more acres of land to burn every year, but with less dramatic impact. In fact, that historical fire was largely beneficial to the land.

Our guest today, who helps us decipher historical fire and how we can add more beneficial fire back to the landscape is Lenya Quinn-Davidson.

And when you have a guest who’s first name literally means “firewood” in Spanish (alternative spelling), you know you’ve found the right person to discuss wildfire management.

But Lenya Quinn-Davidson’s qualifications extend well beyond her name. She’s the Director of the FIRE network for the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources organization. She focuses on the various ways humans connect with fire, including the use of prescribed fire for habitat restoration, invasive species control, and ecosystem and community resiliency. She’s actively engaged in local and national prescribed fire communities, and is an advocate for increasing diversity in the world of wildfire.

A quick aside before we get into the interview. Obviously, climate change is a huge component for why we see bigger fires. Heat has a disproportionate impact on fire intensity. So while we don’t talk about climate change much today, it is absolutely an amplifying factor in wildfire intensity and frequency.

You can find Lenya at LenyaQD on twitter.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Links
California Prescribed Burn Associations
Dixie Fire
Scott Stephens  - wildfire reconstructions from UC Berkeley
UCANR Fire Advisors
WTREX - Women-in-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges

Thanks to Kat Hill for editing help in this episode.

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Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com

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