Faith Ann Heinsch spends a lot of time doing what I recently saw her do at a wildfire conference in Reno: helping firefighters (sometimes skeptical ones) understand what we know about climate change and its impacts on drought and wildfire. She is a researcher with the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab at the Rocky Mountain Research Station run by the US Forest Service. We just got back from visiting with her and a colleague named Jack Cohen (pictured below). Jack has been involved with fire research for over 30 years. He has some revolutionary ideas about how human communities can safely co-exist with wildfires.

Both Jack and Faith Ann were very generous with their time, and helped to strengthen the foundation of knowledge this project is built upon. You can expect to see further reference to these interviews as our work progresses.

After our meetings in Missoula, we continued southeast to Manhattan, Montana. Our friend Joe King runs the operations center for a wildfire consultant and contractor company there. Surrounded by snowcapped mountains – the Horseshoe Hills, The Bridger Range and the Spanish Peaks Wilderness – we took an annual wildfire training refresher and the dreaded pack test, 3 miles in 45 minutes with a 45 pound pack. Later that night, we celebrated around a campfire and went bar-hopping with two new friends, Matt and Kiesha, in Bozeman.