Have you seen that College Hotshot shirt from Hotshot Brewery (you can look at it here if you’re unfamiliar)? This episode’s guest Harrison Raine walks us through doing both of those things at once—and shares why he thinks more firefighters should pursue fire-adjacent degrees and careers that can make use of that invaluable, on-the-ground fire experience. 

During his undergrad, Harrison scored a fellowship that allowed him to travel the world to explore fire management practices in places like South Africa, Greece and Australia, among others. The result of that work provided a profound framework for his continued work in academia, which has largely been funded by his work as a wildland firefighter through the summers. 

Harrison encourages firefighters to lean in to the unique experiences they’ve had if they leave fire, especially as so many agencies, organizations and businesses are trying to find solutions in the wildfire space. We also spoke about his fellowship experiences, as well as what he is researching as a grad student at UC Berkeley, working primarily in the wildland urban interface realm. 

Links and Shownotes

• The Pau Costa Foundation
• The Mountain Legacy Project

As always, we owe a massive thanks to MYSTERY RANCH for sponsoring this episode of Life with Fire, as well as a number of previous episodes. MYSTERY RANCH is proud to be the first pack company to provide women’s specific harnessing in their HOTSHOT Line as well as their HOT SPEED pack in our engine/IA category. To see their entire line of fire packs—including their women’s packs and packs for international firefighters who don’t use fire shelters—check out their website.

Finally, if you’d like to support Life with Fire with a monthly donation, please check out our Patreon for tier options—Patrons who donate at the $7 tier and above will get some Life with Fire and Mystery Ranch swag!