Dayna Tortorici: Tell me a little bit about your background and how you know what you know about fires. Jordan Thomas: I’m a cultural anthropologist and a former wildland firefighter. I started fighting fires in 2019 soon after I moved to Santa Barbara. I had just finished my graduate degree at the University of Cambridge researching Indigenous burning practices in southern Mexico, so I had a unique perspective on how fire can be used to manage landscapes, not just destroy them. But I needed a job. I started fighting wildfires as a way to get closer to the community, and to try to understand the role of fire in California’s ecosystems.  I fought fires for three years. One of those years was on the Los Padres hotshot crew—hotshots are like the Navy Seals of firefighters—while simultaneously doing anthropological research at UC Santa Barbara to better understand the cultural forces that drive wildfire behavior.…