Managing the Flames

United by Fire is a nine-part narrative podcast series that takes you inside the harrowing 2020 wildfire season in Colorado through the voices of those who witnessed it firsthand. Hear from firefighters and residents who found themselves in the path of the flames, as well as ecologists, land managers, community planners and entrepreneurs who are working to build a more wildfire-resilient future. 

The series is hosted by Kristan Uhlenbrock, Executive Director of the Institute for Science & Policy. For more information and resources from this episode, check out the episode summary page. Enjoy the transcript, and to listen to the audio version visit institute.dmns.org/united-by-fire.

 

Fire is a Part of Life 

KRISTAN UHLENBROCK: I'm bouncing along a dirt road in a Forest Service truck, winding across the hilly backside of Left Hand Canyon, just outside of Boulder, Colorado. Forest Service information officer Marya Washburn is at the wheel.  

MARYA WASHBURN: We’re going to bottom out for a second here. 

KRISTAN: The terrain here is steep, rocky, and densely wooded. Lodgepole and ponderosa pines mix with aspen trees, forming a thick canopy. There’s more than a hint of smoke in the air. 

We’re entering the Forsythe II project area, where the U.S. Forest Service is doing some preventative care. I’m joining on the final day of a prescribed burn, and Marya’s radio crackles with activity. 

We pull off to a designated site to park between a few trees. Government trucks, fire engines, and helmeted firefighters are scattered around.   

MARYA: You'll see most of the firefighters out here right now. We have Wyoming interagency hotshot crews, along with some local fire departments, helping us out. It’s the beginning of their season—they’re young, ready to go, and excited to start another fire season. 

KRISTAN: It’s late May, getting close to when it becomes too risky to conduct a prescribed burn due to the hot and dry summer conditions. It’s also when actual wildfires start breaking out across the country, and resources get redirected to those. Luckily, the Forsythe II project made progress this season.  

MARYA: Once you intentionally set a fire on the ground, you're working long days. These folks are at the end of a long month of fire work, and it’s gone really well, which is great. 

KRISTAN: Marya hands me a helmet, a thick, flame-resistant bright yellow shirt, and a pair of bulky pants to put on. 

She then introduces me to Charlie Reynar, a Fire Prevention Officer who’s been helping manage the burn here.  

CHARLIE REYNAR: Let's take a walk. 

KRISTAN: We hike down the back of a hillside, passing a couple of Type 6 fire engines. They’re basically pickup trucks with 300-gallon water tanks, large pumps, and hoses. 

The air smells strongly of campfire, and there are small plumes of smoke scattered across the landscape.  

CHARLIE: Our fire effects look amazing. We definitely met the objectives, especially in terms of reducing the fuels on the ground. 

KRISTAN: The purpose of a prescribed burn is to remove excess leaves, branches, and other plant material that can accumulate and create a wildfire hazard. These low-intensity fires also encourage new growth, improve wildlife habitat, and support overall ecosystem health. 

CHARLIE: What you can see is a mosaic on the ground—greener grasses in some areas, and patches that are black, charred, and burned. 

KRISTAN: Other than a little black around the base of the trees on one side, I can hardly tell they just went through a fire. As Charlie and I walk along the fire break, he explains that this is part of the strategy in a burn like this. I see a small flare-up from a smoldering brush patch as it catches a bit more fuel.  

CHARLIE: By removing that, it prevents trees from catching fire and burning up the entire canopy, killing the tree. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few days, we start seeing some areas greening up—new grass and fresh plants coming in. 

KRISTAN: Fire is inherently unpredictable, yet it’s as much a part of these mountains as the trees themselves. But humans are still learning how to live alongside it. 

Prescribed burns give us a chance to work with fire on our terms. Every time we light a prescribed burn, we’re making a calculated choice—we’re betting that a fire we control today could help prevent catastrophe tomorrow.  

CHARLIE: We haven’t yet reached the point where humans can successfully live with fire, but we need to get to a place where we’re prepared when large, uncontrollable fires move in our direction. They’ll start where we don’t want them to, fueled by wind, and they’ll spread. We need to do our best to prepare for it, and prescribed fire is one of the tools that allows us to get ahead of it in a controlled manner. 

I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I’m an ambassador of fire—I believe in it as a natural process and as a tool to help us manage wildland fire in the West. We all love the outdoors and the Rocky Mountains, and we enjoy recreating outside. It’s important to take care of these places, and fire is a part of that. Just like rain and wind, it’s a part of life.  

KRISTAN: This is United by Fire, a podcast exploring hard truths about our landscapes and ourselves. My name is Kristan Uhlenbrock. From the Institute for Science and Policy, this is season four of Laws of Notion. 

 

We Need More Fire  

KRISTAN: The Forsythe II project is an 18,000-acre wildfire mitigation operation that spans the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, Boulder County Open Space, and private lands. The area is considered high-risk due to the growing number of people and homes nearby, as well as its proximity to Gross Reservoir, which supplies water to about a million and a half people in the Denver area. Part of the Forsythe II project includes this prescribed burn. 

I head into the command center—a white canvas tent that looks like something straight out of a Lewis and Clark expedition. There’s a wood-burning stove for warmth, and inside is the guy in charge: the burn boss, Michael Smith, better known as "Smitty." 

He and some others are hunched over a computer watching timelapse footage from yesterday’s ignition. 

MICHAEL SMITH: Now, watch a couple of trees fall in the middle of the night. There’s one—wham! It’s coming. Bam! There’s another one... And what’s cool is watching the smoke in the morning. I thought we’d be pushing a lot more smoke. 

KRISTAN: A prescribed fire is by no means "set-it-and-forget-it." To prepare for one, crews must clear vegetation and cut firebreaks. Once the burn starts, they monitor its behavior, putting out unexpected flare-ups and using shovels, rakes, and drip torches to manage it. 

It takes a special set of skills and experience to oversee such a complex operation. 

Everyone onsite defers to Smitty. Before I talk to him, I’ve been warned that, at any moment, he could be called away.  

MICHAEL: I make no promises of avoiding expletives. 

KRISTAN: Putting together a prescribed burn requires years of permits, planning, and engagement.  

MICHAEL: The first round of treatments is mechanical. The silviculturists and foresters develop a prescription, determining how many trees we want per acre, what age diversity we want, and what species diversity we’re aiming for. Are we focusing solely on reducing fire danger, or are we also looking to address biological factors, like reducing noxious weeds? Are we trying to get more sunlight onto the soil to increase ground cover? We spend a lot of time developing that prescription, and then we have to gather all the necessary resources: the engines, crews, smoke monitors, and public outreach. 

KRISTAN: All of that gets put into what’s called a burn plan. It’s a legal document, and safety is always the top priority. Communities and structures must be protected, and there are backup plans to the backup plans. 

MICHAEL: We have primary, alternative, contingency, and emergency plans. So, we have four plans in place before we even implement, because fires do escape. Mother Nature doesn’t like to be controlled. A long time ago, they used to call these "controlled burns," but that’s just not an appropriate way to describe them. They’re prescribed burns. 

KRISTAN: Smitty’s watching the weather for changes in temperature, wind, and humidity, and checking how dry the vegetation and soil are. He considers the amount and type of fuel on the ground, as well as the landscape's features, like hills, valleys, and bodies of water. He has to weigh a lot of different factors, but one of the biggest is smoke. 

MICHAEL: We’re going to have fires. But if we burn on our terms, in a prescribed setting, we can have shorter-duration fires that produce lower quantities of smoke, as opposed to those long summer events where we fill up the Front Range valleys and other areas. Last year, Canada dumped all its smoke onto the East Coast. By doing prescribed fire, we introduce lower quantities of smoke in a more controlled way. On our best days, when the atmospheric conditions are right, we can lift that smoke up and out, transporting it a long distance, where it mixes out along the way. 

KRISTAN: One of the more clever questions I’ve heard is, “How do you want your smoke?” Proponents of prescribed burns argue that it’s better to control when and how much smoke enters the atmosphere—smaller doses, timed right. For example, we have a bad ozone problem during the summer months along the Front Range. 

When smoke from megafires—like those we’ve seen in Colorado, California, and Canada—rolls in, it can dramatically worsen our air quality.  

MICHAEL: A lot of the time in the summer, we don’t have the right atmospheric conditions. That’s why we see smoke pooling into these valleys, really impacting people—not just physically, but psychologically.  

KRISTAN: Forests have been dancing with flames for millennia. It’s part of nature trying to find its balance. But here’s the thing—not all fires are created equal. Those mega-infernos that dominate the news? They can devastate entire ecosystems. Smaller, lower-intensity fires, on the other hand, act like a reset button. They clear out the forest floor, making room for new growth, and even serve as fertilizer, returning vital nutrients to the soil. It’s a reminder that in nature, destruction and renewal often go hand in hand. 

MICHAEL: We need to do more prescribed fire, but the problem is there are so many constraints. Unfortunately, every rule and law out there is created because someone made a mistake. We’re painting ourselves further into a corner. The administrative load required for these prescribed fires—getting public buy-in, getting our agency administrators’ approval, and securing support from stakeholders and partners—before we can even think about putting fire on the ground, is a heavy lift. 

KRISTAN: There are a ton of legal hurdles to clear before you can even think about starting a prescribed fire. You’ve got federal clean air laws, liability concerns, and every county has its own set of restrictions. 

As a result, these burns are often delayed or canceled. The goal of the Forsythe II project is to treat 931 acres. This is the second year of prescribed burns, and crews are only about halfway there. 

Smitty says we’ve got to find ways to lessen the bureaucracy.  

MICHAEL: That’s one of the things we need to keep stressing to those in power: we need to do this. Everyone knows it’s necessary, and we have the science to back it up. We need more prescribed fire and more fuel treatments. But it costs money. Through the bipartisan infrastructure law, we got a good injection of funds, but that’s going to dry up. We’re already starting to see that money fall away. 

KRISTAN: Even if you manage to check all the boxes and get all the resources in place, there’s still the issue of public perception. 

MICHAEL: Especially living in the Mountain West, we have a visceral fear of fire. It’s not just a physical response—it’s an emotional one. Getting people to understand that good fires can prevent bad fires is key. Fire is part of the ecosystem; it wants to burn. It’s just a matter of balance. 

Unless we continue to do this, we’ll see extreme fire behavior. We’ll see homes lost, lives threatened or lost, and people’s lives changed forever. Most of us are mountain dwellers because we love this environment. I live right over there, less than a mile away, and I care! I walk around, look at the forest, and think that if we ever get a fire here, we’re in trouble. So, yeah, I think we just need to keep going. We need to continue being inventive in our thinking, embrace science, and secure the funding to do it. 

 

It’s Not Just About the Trees  

KRISTAN: When Teagen Blakey first saw large areas of trees being cut down in the forest near her home in 2014, she wasn’t sure what to think. At the time, she was just 19 years old, and the dense, forested landscape she had grown up with was being transformed. 

TEAGEN BLAKEY: You might think of a meadow, but it’s not quite that. After you’ve had a forest and cut it all down, what you’re left with is a lot of stumps, dirt, branches, and soil that’s been torn up by the mechanical equipment that’s been in there. 

KRISTAN: The technique is called clearcutting, and it wasn’t just the way it looked that bothered her—it was the lack of explanation. So, she and her neighbors started asking questions. 

TEAGEN: It was just, "What the hell is going on here?" So, asking questions, reaching out to the Forest Service, and trying to figure out what was happening. It was more of a discovery process before it became something we felt we needed to get engaged in.. 

KRISTAN: For Teagen, the forest wasn’t just scenery. It was part of her identity. She loved the feeling of being folded into nature, where it felt peaceful and remote. It was home.  

Teagen lives in Nederland, Colorado, at around 8,000 feet. The town is known for its outdoor recreation opportunities and small-town charm.  

TEAGEN: It’s a mountain community about 30 minutes from Boulder. Most property owners have about 3 acres of land, with one house and a lot of forest on their properties. Some properties are meadows. Around the community, we have National Forest, with hiking trails and campsites, but also a lot of undeveloped National Forest Service land—mostly just forests. No one is really out biking or hiking in some areas because there aren’t any trails. 

KRISTAN: While some members of the community weren’t opposed to forest management, they were concerned about how it was being carried out. In response, they came together to form a nonprofit called the Magnolia Forest Group, which Teagen now serves as president. 

TEAGEN: Initially, there were a lot of emails sent to the foresters, but they were mostly brushed aside. One of our neighbors reached out to get a copy of the work order for the acres they had been treating. Around the same time, someone got a hold of the environmental analysis that had been done, and when they compared the two, they realized they didn’t match. That’s a big problem, even logistically, regardless of how you feel about the project. 

It might have been around that point that one individual privately engaged a lawyer. Then, when the nonprofit was organized, we hired the same lawyer. Only when the legal letterhead landed on the Forest Service's desk did they really take notice and straighten up to talk to us. 

KRISTAN: It turns out, the Forest Service was working on the first iteration of a fuel reduction project called Forsythe—the precursor to the project Smitty is working on. The stated goal was to reduce wildfire risks by clearing hazardous fuels and slowing the spread of mountain pine beetles, which had been killing trees across Colorado, including the Front Range, since the mid-90s. 

But Teagen felt the rationale behind the project was unclear.  

TEAGEN: It centers around either fire mitigation or forest health, and it becomes a bit of a circular conversation. 

KRISTAN: A strategy focused on fuels reduction might differ from one aimed at forest restoration or wildlife habitat. Ecosystems are complex, and it’s that diversity that makes them healthy and resilient, but also difficult to manage. 

It’s hard to find a single strategy that doesn’t come with some level of trade-off. 

Plus the Forest Service didn’t have the community’s trust.  

TEAGEN: They would say, "Okay, it’s not for forest health; it’s about fire mitigation to protect the community." Then we’d dive into those details, and it would turn out, "Well, this isn’t really addressing fire mitigation. Oh, actually, it’s for forest health.” Around we’d go. They just had different perspectives on why they were doing the project, and what we saw being accomplished didn’t align with that. There wasn’t much mutual goodwill, I think. They didn’t appreciate our criticism, and we didn’t trust what they were telling us—or agree with the reasons they gave for the project. So, there were a lot of emails back and forth, and eventually, I think, under legal pressure, the Forest Service decided to pull the project. 

KRISTAN: The original iteration of the Forsythe project was stopped, but for Teagen, it raised questions about whose interests are being represented and how a community’s values are considered in larger decision-making processes. 

TEAGEN: The Forest Service tends to focus more on the numerical composition of a forest—things like tree count, diameter, and the history of fires. Meanwhile, residents and people who enjoy the forest aren’t focused on counting trees or considering when the last fire occurred or when the next one should happen. I think there’s a middle ground. Some areas of the forest need to be dense for certain wildlife, which may be bad for fire risk, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a natural part of the ecosystem. Forests evolve, with small trees growing into big ones, while other trees fall. 

What I’m saying is that forest health might look different to a community than it does to the Forest Service, which is managing hundreds of thousands of acres and might not care about one specific 10-acre plot. But to the community that lives right next to those 10 acres, it matters a lot—they know it like the back of their hand.  

KRISTAN: A few years later, the Forest Service introduced the Forsythe II Project, once again focused on reducing wildfire risks to communities and improving ecosystem health. The goal was to restore areas of ponderosa pine, aspen, and meadows to a more natural state, while reducing the heavy lodgepole pine canopy to make the ecosystem more resilient to fire. The project also gave private landowners permission to create more defensible space around their homes by expanding the work onto nearby federal lands. 

This time, the agency took different steps to engage more with local communities.  

TEAGEN: It wasn’t so much about whether we were going to have this project or not; it was more about how we were going to get through it. Where could we find the balance where both sides are somewhat happy and we can move forward? 

KRISTAN: Teagen was invited on field trips to learn about the work being done. 

TEAGEN: It was really invaluable being out on the ground, looking at the same things. We learned more about the science, like measurements, and how the Forest Service goes about doing that. On the other hand, they learned things they hadn’t seen from their aerial imaging. They’d say, “Oh, actually, maybe we don’t want to cut here because it looks different on the ground.” So there was some give and take. We also got to know each other more as people, which I think is really important. It’s easier to have a conversation and disagree when you know the person beyond just the name on the email. 

KRISTAN: Teagen sees her community’s advocacy as part of a larger push for a more holistic approach by the Forest Service. For her, it’s not just about the trees. 

TEAGEN: That’s one component, but there’s so much more. There’s still that siloing, and the ecosystem doesn’t work like that. It’s all one big web, with everything connected. 

 

We’re Already Intervening 

KRISTAN: There’s a fundamental theme to this series: humanity’s role in nature. When do we intervene, when do we step back, and who gets to make these decisions? 

CHIARA FORRESTER: Something I always have to remind myself is that we’re already performing interventions every single day. The way we stop fires, the way we emit CO2—we’re intervening in every aspect of our lives, whether it’s through habitat fragmentation or putting houses in areas where firefighters will then have to stop fire from moving through the forest. The question is, how can we intervene in a way that feels more like stewardship, rather than causing negative effects? 

KRISTAN: This is Chiara Forrester, the Forest Program Director for the Watershed Center, a nonprofit based in Boulder County.  

CHIARA: We want it to be a situation where managed wildfire can do what it does best around communities, and those communities have the resources—home hardening and defensible space—in place so that fire can move around them without being catastrophic. 

KRISTAN: Chiara grew up in Oregon, surrounded by the dense, rainforest-like ecosystems of the Cascades. She held a traditional conservationist view—that every tree needed to stay. 

CHIARA: I used to have very black-and-white thinking. I cried when I saw my first tree cut down in Oregon. I was unable to see the nuance of ecological management. At that time, I thought cutting any tree was bad—horrible. Humans should never do it. We should never intervene in nature being nature, right? 

KRISTAN: Over time, her perspective changed. While earning a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder, she learned how land management can both harm and help the environment. For example, Indigenous peoples used cultural burning to support biodiversity and provide resources, while European settlers cleared large areas of forest to make room for crops and livestock—practices that dramatically altered landscapes and wiped out habitats. 

CHIARA: I’ve tried to look for that balance by taking small steps and focusing on our desired future conditions. What do we want to see? We want a system that can receive wildfire and grow back into a forest afterward. Starting with that desired future condition, we can then look at potential ways to get there. How do we know if we’re messing it up? How do we know if we’re doing it right? And at what points do we check and adjust as needed?  

KRISTAN: It’s an approach called adaptive management, and she wanted to apply it to have a real impact on the ground. 

CHIARA: I wanted to make the knowledge I was gaining more applicable to situations involving both complex ecological and human social questions, rather than just publishing it behind a paywall where only other scientists could access it. 

KRISTAN: Chiara left academia and began working with communities, listening to their values and visions for the land. 

One example is a project she leads called the Saint Vrain Forest Health Partnership, a collaboration of over 100 stakeholders, including federal agencies, local governments, nonprofits, private landowners, and water suppliers.  

CHIARA: Our overarching vision is that our watershed can sustain wildfire and climate change while protecting water supplies, preserving diverse flora and fauna for future generations, and making it so that fire—a critical part of our landscape—can be present without being a catastrophic threat to life and property. Instead, it can become more of a severe weather event for our communities. The entire purpose of the Saint Vrain Forest Health Partnership is to emphasize that we’re all in this together. All of our stakeholders need to be involved, as we know that risk spills over from one property to another.  

KRISTAN: The region Chiara works in stretches from Rocky Mountain National Park, heading east across the northern part of the Front Range to lower elevations. Wildfire risk looms large in the area. 

CHIARA: We look across federally owned land, private land, and county land, trying to pair projects together in a mosaic across the landscape. We know that contiguous treated areas are more effective in reaching our goal of slowing wildfire near highly valued resources and assets, allowing firefighters to stay on the ground longer. 

KRISTAN: She’s working to thin overgrown forests, conduct prescribed burns, and teach residents how to create defensible space around their homes.  

CHIARA: Our viewpoint as an organization is that landowners are collaborators. We’re co-managing their property together. As a nonprofit, we don’t own land, so we can’t simply go out and make decisions. We want to hear their values, their vision for their property, and their knowledge of the land. They live on that property day in and day out, many for decades, so they’ve seen how things have changed over time. We approach it from a place of wanting to understand the landowner’s perspectives and values, and then finding a balance where both ecological and human objectives can align.  

KRISTAN: Many people have deep, emotional ties to the places they live and ideas about how it should look. So the concept of cutting down or trimming trees to reduce wildfire risks isn’t always easy to sell. 

CHIARA: Logging was historically conducted—and still is in many regions of the country and the world—primarily for human benefit. So, pushing back against managers who are doing something that’s often been driven by economic gain is completely valid. 

KRISTAN: But Chiara points out that there is also a deeper friction that needs to be acknowledged and overcome. 

CHIARA: When I was young, I read a lot of books about hidden logging practices in the Pacific Northwest conducted by the Forest Service, and it really made me concerned about their approach to management. There’s a lot of mistrust of our federal agency partners because of a historic lack of clarity and meaningful engagement with residents in decision-making. But I’ve seen an incredible shift. Now that I’m in this world, working with people I view as visionaries in this landscape, I’ve been truly inspired by their approach and openness to collaboration. I sometimes disagree with things the district ranger says, but we have a conversation about it, and he’s just as open to my disagreement as I am to his. I really hope people know that there are those who truly care about the complexity of the issue. 

KRISTAN: Like with many socially complex problems, there needs to be an understanding of the history while acknowledging mistakes, being accountable, and allowing space for change. For any relationship to evolve, it must be a two-way street. 

CHIARA: It’s hard to say, "We messed up in the past, but trust us now." In schools, we often teach science as black and white. So, helping people understand uncertainty and the evolution of our thinking, especially when it comes to adaptive management, is hopefully a way to mend that past. 

KRISTAN: Within the St. Vrain Forest Health Partnership, there was a project involving 43 private properties in a small community in the foothills outside Boulder called Jamestown. The community had mixed opinions on how to protect themselves and their properties from a potential wildfire disaster.  

CHIARA: I had a lot of people tell me, "You’re never going to get my neighbor on board. They will never, ever cut their trees." 

KRISTAN: So, Chiara sat at people’s kitchen tables and talked through their options. She explained how she could help secure funding for the work, which can be costly. To have professionals come in and remove the fuel, the cost is about $6,000 per acre. 

CHIARA: When the problem feels really big and you don’t have the resources to do anything about it, of course, you start to feel hopeless and think, "I’m not going to cut my trees. It’s not going to make a difference. This isn’t going to help anyone." 

KRISTAN: Through this process, she saw a whole new kind of conversation taking place. 

CHIARA: I saw this shift where people realized, "Oh, I just have to tell you what I want to see, let you on my property, and talk through it. Then it’ll happen?" I think that really helped people feel like they could do something, which made it feel more real. It made them able to confront the discomfort of change more, because change is uncomfortable. If you don’t know it’s going to be beneficial, why would you dig into that discomfort? 

KRISTAN: Chiara’s approach takes time, but she’s dedicated because she’s seen the results firsthand.  

CHIARA: Through trust-building, long conversations, and talking things over repeatedly, we eventually got everyone on board except one landowner. I’ve seen people’s willingness to compromise and move beyond what they originally thought was a "healthy forest," and toward an understanding that a super dense forest isn’t always the healthiest version of it. Of course, that varies by elevation, but really, people’s willingness to say, "I want to be a great steward of this land," and then seek out the information needed to do so, has been key. I think once we all realize that fire isn’t the enemy, we’ll be more able to coexist with it in a way that’s beneficial for everyone.  

KRISTAN: Her work is about building respect, trust, and ultimately, resilience—not just in forests, but in people. 

CHIARA: Really, it’s about being a person. It’s about saying, "I hear you. This is really hard. I’m sorry you’ve been put in a situation where you’re on this land, and we’ve suppressed wildfires for over 150 years. Now, you have to make the hard decisions." That’s a tough thing to deal with. Those trees are your home. You love those trees. They’re the ones your kids play in. You watch the birds in that tree outside your window every day. But we’re here to support you in making the best decision—for the ecology and for yourself. 

 

Timber!  

KRISTAN: I’m walking down a private road in Allenspark, Colorado, with Chiara and a crew from the Watershed Center.  

CHIARA: The sign says "Chipmunk Crossing, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m." The signs here are incredible. On the other side, it also says, "This tree is stationary." 

KRISTAN: The property is 40 acres, with nearly a dozen cabins scattered among pine trees and scraggly alpine tundra. It’s chilly, and hummingbirds dart between the trees. We’re just a stone’s throw from the southeast corner of Rocky Mountain National Park and the East Troublesome Fire burn scar. Chiara is marking trees for fire mitigation. 

CHIARA: The blue paint marks trees that are set for removal. There are a couple of ways to mark a property. One is to mark the trees you're going to keep, and the other is to mark the ones you're going to cut. Many people assume we’d come in and do a clear-cut because they have the preconception—justified in some cases—that to reduce fire risk, we can’t have trees on the property, period. But a lot of these trees are actually quite resilient to wildfire. 

KRISTAN: She points to a tree with beautiful orange-brown bark.  

CHIARA: If we look at this big old ponderosa here, it’s limbed itself up by shedding its lower branches. That’s a fire adaptation to prevent fire from reaching the canopy of the tree. Ponderosa bark is super thick and resistant to fire, so you’ll often see fire scars—there are a lot of them as we walk past right now. 

KRISTAN: To protect these old ponderosas, Chiara and the landowner decided to make some strategic cuts to some of the lodgepole pines. Lodgepole pines are only adapted to high-severity, low-frequency fires. 

Due to fire suppression, they’ve grown densely around the ponderosa, which is now creating a fire risk.  

CHIARA: We’re really restoring the ability of this area to handle wildland fire without excessive tree mortality. From where we’re standing, we can only see three marked trees for removal. So, this work doesn’t always mean clearing an area completely; it can also mean taking a more nuanced approach. 

KRISTAN: I leave Chiara to her marking and walk over to talk to the property owner, Jon Zumwinkel. He’s walking down the gravel road, pointing out some additional work to one of the crew members. 

KRISTAN: Jon’s family has owned this property since the 1920s, and for the past 15 years, he’s been taking steps to protect it from fire. 

JON ZUMWINKEL: So this is a great place to grow up, and my purpose now is to provide another generation of kids the same opportunity. That’s what we’re doing—we’re trying to preserve this and resurrect it, giving kids the chance to play with frogs, climb on rocks, build teepees, and play in the stream. 

KRISTAN: Walking the property and looking at the old log cabins feels like stepping back in time. Jon points down the road. 

JON: There’s a building they built that served as a tool shed, ice house, and wood shed. In the middle one, they put sawdust insulation. They would take ice from the river, cut it up, and store it there to keep it as long as possible. They used it in their trickle-down refrigerators to preserve food. 

KRISTAN: He sees himself as a steward of this land and the memories and stories that go with it.  

JON: I’m an only child from a family that allowed me to grow up in the mountains of Colorado during the summers. I finished my work in corporate America with the dream of coming back here to preserve this family legacy. It’s my intention to do that for as long as I’m able. 

 

Fireproof  

KRISTAN: Jon and I walk over to his cabin. It’s dark wood and stands mostly apart from the forest around it. We sit in some lawn chairs.  

KRISTAN (OFF MIC): Talk to me about how you view yourself, this property, and your place in this broader ecosystem and community, especially in relation to those of us downstream.  

JON: Well, I think we need to be responsible for each other. That’s one of my fundamental values and principles. We need to set an example and take action. We’re all in this together, whether we like it or not. The planet is transforming, and we need to rely on science and facts to figure out the best way to approach it. 

KRISTAN: Jon was an early adopter of the Watershed Center’s project. He sees their approach as essential if he wants to keep spending time up here, even though it sometimes feels counter to his worldview or at odds with the mix of opinions in the community. 

JON: I’m an environmentalist and I understand tree huggers. One of the problems we’ve had up here is that what we need to do is cut down a lot of trees. That feels antithetical to the idea that trees are the lungs of the earth. It’s really hard to come to terms with that. This is going to be a very dramatic change. By starting as a larger landowner and jumping into the fray, I’m hoping to set an example—walking the talk. That’s the basic approach to getting along with everyone: do what you say you’re going to do, have integrity, and care about other people. People can sense that. 

KRISTAN: Jon’s leading by example, not just for his community, but the next generation.  

JON: I’ve had a wonderful life, and I want my grandchildren, and your children, to have the same opportunities. We need to adapt. 

KRISTAN: Adapting is often easier said than done, and even Jon acknowledges that. He’s created about 30 feet of defensible space around his home. 

But I notice a small grove of trees right next to his front door. When I ask him about them, I see emotion flicker across his face.  

JON: Well, these three trees here, I’ve been looking at since I was 14, sitting on that deck. I’m kind of fond of them. They have a lot of character and a lot of animals in them. There’s a whole ecosystem of hummingbirds, chickadees, squirrels, and other creatures that interact with me. But I think it’s probably not in my best interest for those trees to remain. It’s taken me about three years to get used to that. 

KRISTAN: As our climate shifts and wildfires grow more intense, we’re being forced to reimagine our relationship with the forests around us. It’s a delicate balance—protecting what we love while accepting that change is inevitable.  

JON: There's an awful lot of beauty here, and it sure makes a lot of sense to me to protect it. 

KRISTAN: From prescribed burns to tree thinning, we have tools to help shape our landscape’s future. But using them requires people coming together, tough conversations, and sometimes difficult compromises. If we’re not careful, we might lose sight of the forest because of the trees. 

This is United by Fire. Up next, we explore the policy and funding levers that can better prepare us for a future with wildfire.  

BRIAN KITTLER: This is a massive problem, and it’s not something you can just put a band-aid on. We need a holistic, comprehensive policy framework to address the entire wildfire problem. 

Credits

KRISTAN: Laws of Notion is a production of the Institute for Science and Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. To learn more visit lawsofnotion.org. 

I’m your host Kristan Uhlenbrock. This episode was produced by me, Carson Frame, and Tricia Waddell with support from Nicole Delaney, and fact-checking by Kate Long. Sound design by Seth Samuel. Original music by Ryan Flores. For a full list of credits, check out the show notes.  

To listen to the audio version, or for more information and additional resources on wildfires in Colorado, please visit institute.dmns.org/united-by-fire.

Check out all the seasons of the Laws of Notion podcast at lawsofnotion.org. 

  

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