Blog cover photo credit: Wonderstone Films.
Almost two years ago, the Fire Networks partnership team was presented with an opportunity to develop a visual storytelling project video highlighting how people are building healthier relationships with fire in varied landscapes across the United States.
Today, we’re excited and grateful to be able to share “Many Paths: Stories for a Better Future with Fire.”
Readers of this blog know intimately that fire is a defining process in landscapes across the United States and the world.
And, while wildfire is a global phenomenon with global impacts, the ways communities live with fire are profoundly shaped by local people, local knowledge, and local conditions.
There is no single path to living better with fire. There are many.
See the Many Paths page on the Fire Networks site here, or click into individual ones below.
Bringing Fire Back to the People: Cultural Burning with a New Generation
Fueling Good Fire: Prescribed Burn Associations and the Community-Based Burning Movement
Community Resilience: Fire Adapted Communities & Neighborhood Ambassadors in the Greater Yellowstone
Expanding the Prescribed Fire Workforce: A Partnership in Action
Living with Smoke: Smoke Ready Communities in the Greater Yellowstone Area
Learning to Burn: Students Lead the Way to a Better Relationship with Fire
Lighting a Path: The Southern Blue Ridge On-Call Burn Crew
The Power of Partners: Building a Fire Family in the Southern Blue Ridge
When we embarked on this project, we knew we would need to make difficult choices about where to shoot and which stories to tell, and anything we were able to help create would be incomplete and insufficient because there are so many incredible possibilities.
We chose the landscapes for the project—Northern California, Greater Yellowstone and the Southern Blue Ridge—based on the successes and stories we knew best and that we thought we could help partners tell most effectively with limited time and resources.
We are beyond grateful to everyone who has participated, and we hope these videos will help the people doing this great work share their stories with the broader world and sustain their efforts—while also conveying a vision, however incomplete, of what living better with fire can look like.
We only wish we could have helped provide a forum for so many more stories because what you’ll find in Many Paths is just a small part of what’s possible when people come together to learn from fire, work with fire, and build resilient landscapes and communities for the future—with fire.
Please enjoy this series and share it widely with your networks. Thank you for your continued interest and support of this work.
Sincerely,
Michelle Medley-Daniel and Marek Smith, Co-Directors of the Fire Networks
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