Wildfires are more destructive today than when I began fighting them in 1988. Summers became fire seasons and fire seasons became fire years - harsher, longer, drier, and with more people living with the threat of wildfires to their homes and livelihoods. "It's fire season somewhere" is now the norm.

Media coverage of wildfires today almost exclusively leans on tragedy, burning structures and devastated towns. I've experienced a fair amount of success limiting or preventing this type of destruction, leading crews, working and documenting the work of wildland firefighters as a task force leader and as a public information officer, side-by-side with federal, state, local, and volunteer firefighters in the west, north, south and eastward.