Fighting Fires on the Frontlines of Climate Change

Engagement Party

CNN

News, Society & Culture, Entertainment News, Arts

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Devastating wildfires like the ones in Maui could become more common in our future due to a host of several factors, including climate change. But what about the folks who are already grappling with the fact that climate change is here? This week, we break down the connection between climate change and wildfires with climate scientist Dr. Daniel Swain. Then, Audie talks with former wildland firefighters Megan Fitzgerald-McGowan and Riva Duncan about how climate change is shifting the way fires are fought, and how the work is getting more demanding, more difficult, and more dangerous. GUESTS: Megan Fitzgerald-McGowan is currently a Program Manager at Firewise USA, which teaches people how to adapt to living with wildfire and encourages neighbors to work together and take action now to prevent losses. She is a former wildland firefighter. Riva Duncan is the vice president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit advocacy group fighting for reforms for federal wildland firefighters. She retired from wildland firefighting in 2020 after more than 30 years. Dr. Daniel Swain is a climate scientist focused on the dynamics and impacts of extreme events—including droughts, floods, storms, and wildfires—on a warming planet. He blogs at Weather West, which provides real-time perspectives on California and western North American weather and climate. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In my earlier years as a reporter, I covered a lot of natural disasters, and each has a certain emotional rhythm.
0:09.5	A tornado surprises people. Where it touches down, feels random. It's like a cosmic joke.
0:18.1	A hurricane exhausts you. The fighter flight decision-making as it builds, the storm itself with its one-to-punch of whipping winds and rising water.
0:30.0	But fire is a different story.
0:33.9	Its destruction absolute.
0:37.0	Flames, terrifying, blackened skies, and ash. Everywhere there's ash.
0:45.4	Even the people who fight fires can be awed by the totality of it. Listen to Tasha Pugdalao of the Maui Fire Department.
0:53.2	Can you speak to what it was like on the ground battling these flames that at times were moving more than a mile a minute because of the high winds?
1:04.8	Um, it seemed surreal. Um, it seemed like an apocalypse and everything seemed to be on fire.
1:16.8	Yeah, I'm not going to lie, it was really hard to focus at times, but we had a job to do
1:21.2	and stood by people that watched their houses burn and they kept continuing to fight.
1:31.8	Yeah, it's still surreal and I think no matter how many times we see it every day going back to help clean up and help let spot fires out or it just it's still seems like a nightmare that we're trying to wake up from.
1:50.4	Wildfire season was off to a slow start here in the U.S.
1:54.7	Until it wasn't, the wildfire in Maui is now the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than 100 years.
2:02.4	Chaos and panic as the relentless wildfires continue to ravage the Paradise Island of Maui,
2:07.9	leaving loss and destruction in its wake.
2:10.7	On Tuesday, the fire came with no warning.
2:13.8	More than 2,000 homes and buildings destroyed.
2:16.5	Some residents escaping by boat, watching the flames engulfed their town as they sailed away.
2:22.1	And officials say about 1,000 people have been reported missing.
2:25.5	The death toll is expected to climb.
2:29.7	As reporters, we try to make sense of disaster.
	...

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