Podcast Episode 2 - Living With Fire
October 8th, 2021The members of the program’s growing team give their perspective on what it means to “live with fire,” and talk about how they are continuing the program’s mission in new and innovative ways.
Spencer Eusden, special projects manager for Living With Fire, has a background in science education and recently joined the Living With Fire team to help create a new fire science curriculum for Northern Nevada High Schools. According to Christina Restaino, assistant professor and director of Living With Fire, this kind of project is new for the program. “It’s a really exciting, engaging project that is really a lot of fun to work on, honestly, because it’s kind of a different skillset that we haven’t been employing so far.”
Eusden said that the curriculum is designed to be integrated into different science classes, which makes sense considering Nevada’s fire history. “One of the really cool things that’s come up from all the scientists, fire professionals and teachers that we’ve talked to is because fire is such a big part of the Nevada ecosystem, there are so many different places that you can connect fire to.”
Jamie Roice-Gomes has been with Living With Fire since 2016 when she started as the outreach coordinator. Now the manager of the program, Roice-Gomes reflected on how the program has grown and evolved, but one thing that hasn’t changed is that Living With Fire is a collaborative effort and the partnerships they have built with local, state and federal firefighting and land management agencies have enabled Living With Fire to continue their work. “We really rely heavily on these agencies and work in collaboration with them, and so that’s big with us.”