Humanity and Fire: A History of Relationships with Jordan Thomas

Mind, Body, and Soil

Episode 115: In this episode, Kate sits down with Jordan Thomas to talk about his new book When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World. It might not be the conversation you expect, opening by exploring fire’s centrality to what it is to be human and how relational and contextual fire is. Jordan guides us through the last ten thousand years of fire use by Indigenous communities. Jordan then does a dive into understanding the intertwining of fire and capitalism through the last 300 years, culminating in the last decade or so of megafires, fueled by climate change. Jordan is an anthropologist and former wildland firefighter and while he’s sharing how fire has transformed our world, he also shares how the process of writing this book transformed him, and the joy, grief, trauma, and love he goes through in his search to better understand fire. The conversation winds down talking about prescribed burns and using fire with intention. In the end, Kate and Jordan come back around to relationships and how much they matter in exploring how humanity might once again shift their relationship with fire.

Jordan's Book: When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World

Reference Episodes:

Episode 112: Mariah Blake on PFAS, Chemicals in Firefighting

Episode 61:Robbie Krapfel on Fighting Fire

Episode 95: Brock Dolman on Fire, Water, and Beavers

Episode 72: Ben Goldfarb on Beavers, Built and Natural Worlds

Episode 85: John Vaillant on Fire

Episode 93: John Perlin on our Relationship to Wood and Forests

Episode 113: Marguerite Holloway on Our Relationship to Forests

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