Editor’s Note: Laurel Kays is the Manager of the Fire Learning Network, a sister network of FAC Net. She is based in Raleigh, North Carolina and is the current President of the NC Prescribed Fire Council. In this blog, Laurel reflects on the future of fire adaptation, the hard truths and realities of our work as fire practitioners, and the ever-persistent need for hope.

 

A 19th century sermon by theologian Hyacinthe Loyson contends that “These trees which he plants, and under whose shade he shall never sit, he loves them for themselves, and for the sake of his children and his children’s children.” His words inspired the old adage that those who plant trees knowing they will never sit under their shade are blessed for doing so. 

Like tree-planting, fire is a long-term game. Restoring landscapes and fire cultures that have been eroded by still very present settler colonialism and capitalist resource extraction does not happen overnight. This work takes funding, conducive weather, personnel, talks with neighbors, memos of understanding, insurance coverage, and so much more. Even in places where prescribed fire has been used consistently for decades, a hurricane or wind event can wreak havoc in a day. Restoring our relationship with fire and the land it burns on is not a journey with an end destination – it’s an ongoing process of adaptation to a changing world.

As fire practitioners, we do this work because, ostensibly, we believe it matters. We believe it is possible to see a world where longleaf pines, prairies, sequoias, and other fire-adapted ecosystems flourish. We believe that we can reach an equilibrium where the artificial divide between humans and nature has softened and our communities understand and support fire on the landscapes of which they are a part. We believe in a future that is better and worth working for, even if it is our descendants who ultimately see it come to pass.

Stitchwork of the caption text with buildings on fire

Millennial humor can be a bit dark. Credit unknown.

So what happens when that future stops looking possible? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their Sixth Assessment Report on August 9, 2021. The official press release grimly notes that “Many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion – such as continued sea level rise – are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years.” It seems that every other week there are news stories about another worrying research study, worsening drought, or rapidly disappearing species.

 

 

Cartoon meme of two figures, one has text above it about existential dread.

Credit unknown.

Bad news has consequences. Studies have found that climate change and the failure of governments to act has profound mental health consequences, particularly for younger people. My anecdotal data confirms that the kids (or young adults) are not alright. The week the IPCC report was released, nearly every millennial I know was sleepwalking through the days while trying to keep up at work and school and hobbies that felt hollow. We share memes and nightmares about entirely plausible scenarios in which governments have collapsed under the weight of refugee crises as sea levels rise and formerly arable lands become barren. We make jokes that also aren’t jokes about how we’ll never retire. We debate whether it’s ethical to have kids and where to look for jobs based on places that might be most habitable in twenty years.

 

And we, or at least I, come to work, and try to believe it still matters. 

And yet despair is not an option. I love fire, and the forests and mountains and prairies I get to see as part of my work. I love the beautiful, weird world I get to live in with its Venus flytraps and morel mushrooms and indigo snakes. And I love the people in it, even if I don’t always like all of them. The idea of giving up and giving in to the immense loss and suffering we face is unthinkable. 

Three people dressed in firefighter gear stand in the woods and smile at the camera.

Three colleagues on a burn in North Carolina. Photo credit: Laurel Kays

 

I went looking for an alternative that felt honest, a way to avoid the paralysis of despair that didn’t feel like papering sunshine and rainbows over the threats we face. I found the words of prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba that are now written on a post-it note on my desk. “Hope is a discipline. It’s less about ‘how you feel,’ and more about the practice of making a decision every day, that you’re still gonna put one foot in front of the other, that you’re still going to get up in the morning. And you’re still going to struggle…

I found this version of hope described in other places too, most prominently in the words of women, particularly Black women, Indigenous women, and other people whose communities have been fighting battles for centuries that they knew they would almost certainly not live to see won. A practice of hope doesn’t require a gut feeling that everything will be ok. It doesn’t require me to innately be a glass half full optimist. It doesn’t require minimizing the problems we face to protect the fragile illusion that it will all just work out somehow. It is, as Kaba points out, a deliberate action, not a feeling.

 

Photo of a forested area with dark clouds in the sky.

A North Carolina landscape. To paraphrase Sam Gamgee from Lord of the Rings, “what we’re holding on to is that there’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” Photo credit: Laurel Kays

 

I can’t make myself believe that the world will avert the worst impacts of climate change. That seems unlikely as Lake Mead dries up and heat waves kill those without the privilege of air conditioning. But I can try to learn that maybe what I believe about the future matters less than what I do about it. 

So that’s what I’ll do – keep showing up each day to lace up my boots or power up my laptop. And maybe, despite the odds, things will get better after all.

 

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