In this episode, I enlisted the help of Dr. Susan Prichard—who has a PhD in fire ecology—to share a few of the foundational ideas of fire science and how fire is fundamental to the landscapes in the Western US, specifically. She told me a bit about her ongoing research and projects, one of which models how fires would have burned and affected the landscape through the last century if they hadn’t been suppressed. Susan has also done extensive research on (and shared some insights on) how climate change influences fire and whether or not the high-severity fires we’re seeing more of lately have any historical precedent in the US.