The Residents Setting California on Fire in Order to Save It

To live with fire, locals are learning to wield it for good

The Fire Forward program teaches California residents how to use prescribed burns to prevent future wildfires. Photos: Good Fire Alliance

Sasha Berleman, PhD, grew up in Southern California, and for most of her early life, fire meant ash falling from the sky like snow, or “smoke days” home from school and stuck inside. She was off to college before anyone mentioned the beneficial role of fire in the state’s ecosystems.

“I learned for the first time ever as an adult that fire is necessary in these landscapes, that it has been used by Native peoples for thousands and thousands of years, and that there’s an option for living with fire that doesn’t have to be tragedy,” she tells Future Human. “That really captivated me, after all of those more negative experiences growing up.”

Now, as a fire ecologist, she directs Fire Forward, a program of the conservation nonprofit Audubon Canyon Ranch that’s working to teach Californians about the ecological benefits of fire. People enrolled in the program gain the skills, experience, and equipment they need to bring those benefits back to the landscape with controlled burns, transforming their relationship to fire in the process.

Californians have always lived with fire. Just not like this. Five of the six largest fires in the state’s history occurred this year, and…