An education program that considers unresolved symptoms of The Fire Problem.
This special podcast series will examine and explain underlying challenges and vulnerabilities with our climate, environment, politics, and vegetation.
“I love history and I think it's important if you're a product person and entrepreneur to understand what came before you, because if you know what came before you, you can understand what's coming next. And many people are trying to build the future and don't know the past. And that gets people into trouble.”
"The 20th century just annihilated millennia of tradition and knowledge. And we are finally getting back to a place of understanding more, learning from indigenous people and not trying to compartmentalize indigenous history and practice and knowledge into a Western viewpoint about how fire ecology works."
David Weinstein and Hugh Coxe The Fire Problem, EP541
"When they start burning structure to structure like that, this is no longer a wildland fire. Once it leaves the wildland area and gets into the homes or the businesses, and now fire is spreading via structure to structure, that's what we call an urban conflagration."
“A single home is only as safe as the homes around it. We need to get entire neighborhoods to embrace this notion of the home ignition zone and get communities to collectively take these actions to make themselves more resilient to wildfire as well. That's tricky to get people to coordinate.”
Nick Mott and Justin Angle The Fire Problem, EP525
"There's really no time like yesterday to reduce our emissions. That's a tough sell in a world driven by profit that is leveraged against the future, that's borrowing against the future. That's what fossil fuels are. These are ancient energies that we are burning against the future, so the math doesn't work."
Conversations with conservationists, first responders, historians, politicians, scientists, technologists, tribal leaders, and more will help diagnose our situation with opportunities for treatment.
Human influence is at the heart of The Fire Problem and our goal is to learn from past neglect and failure and plan for a future of education and prevention.
Produced with Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University with support from the Orange County Community Foundation.
In the United States, particularly over the past century, the stewardship of fire has been inadequate—threatening communities, economies, and ecosystems.
Using creativity as a catalyst for conservation, we hope artists will inspire change through a national landscape art exhibition and contest celebrating the outdoors.
