‘When It All Burns’ Brings Us to the Fireline

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For California firefighters battling wildland flames, the work is up close, unrelenting and fueled by a climate growing hotter and drier by the year. Anthropologist and former Los Padres Hotshot Jordan Thomas pulls readers straight into this world in his new book “When it All Burns,” chronicling six months on the frontlines of California’s megafires. We talk with Thomas about what it is like to battle uncontainable destruction and the deeper roots of the crisis. Guests: Jordan Thomas, anthropologist and former wildland firefighter; author, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.7	Hey, forum listeners, it's Alexis. Did you hear that forum is launching a video podcast? It is true.
0:37.4	Each week will drop a video recording
0:39.4	of a recent forum episode on the KQED News YouTube channel. We can't wait to bring you into
0:46.1	the studio for our conversations on Bay Area Culture, California News, and beyond. Our first few
0:52.0	episodes are out now. Just visit YouTube.com slash KQED News to see it all.
0:58.1	That's YouTube.com slash KQED News.
1:03.3	From KQED.
1:04.7	From KQED.
1:04.7	Thank you. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Scott Schaefer in Fermina Kim.
1:24.6	Coming up on forum, what is it like to fight fire with your own hands in a
1:29.5	landscape burning hotter and faster than ever before? Anthropologist Jordan Thomas found
1:35.2	out firsthand trading research for a chainsaw and joining the Los Padres hot shots, an elite
1:42.2	wildland firefighting crew on the central coast.
1:45.6	His new book, When It All Burns, brings us inside that brutal high-stakes world.
1:50.6	We'll talk with Thomas about life on the line, what these fires teach us about our changing
1:55.1	climate, and where we go from here. That's next after this news. This is Forum. I'm Scott Schaefer in Fermina Kim. In January, as we all remember,
2:12.2	wildfires tore through the Santa Monica Mountains during what historically would have
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