Learning to live with fire

CHRIS HATZIS
Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights. It’s where expert types obsess, confess and profess. I’m Chris Hatzis, let’s eavesdrop on experts changing the world - one lecture, one experiment, one interview at a time.

Fire. It’s a constant in the Australian landscape. But while its frequency and impact form a fundamental part of our national psyche, its causes are often contested, and management strategies equally so. Professor Cristina Montiel Molina is from the Complutense University of Madrid, where she is professor of geography and chair of the research group on forest geography, policy and socioeconomics.

Late last year, Professor Cristina Montiel Molina spent three months on a research visit with the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Her research project was titled "New governance mechanisms for fire risk management: community preparedness and landscape resilience". The main aims of the project were to understand the interactions between landscape dynamics and fire regime changes in the State of Victoria, and to investigate the governance mechanisms for bushfire management, considering the landscape diversity and fire history at the regional and local scales.

In the midst of another Australian summer on the continent of fire, our reporter Steve Grimwade caught up with Professor Cristina Montiel Molina to chat about her work.

STEVE GRIMWADE
Professor Cristina Montiel Molina, welcome to Eavesdrop on Experts.

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Thank you very much, I'm very pleased to be here.

STEVE GRIMWADE
When you are at a barbeque with a cold drink in your hand and someone comes up to you and says, what do you do? How do you answer them?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
I'm a geographer, so I'm a social scientist and I'm a professor and a teacher and researcher in the university. So my main interests are related to education, to higher education but also to the dissemination and relationship and contact with society of the things that we are doing and working on. Then to make progress in the important social aspects that we need to confront and we don't know so much.

So, bushfires, bushfires is the topic that took me here to Australia and this is the topic that we are working on for almost 10 years in my research group. What about bushfires? Why are we working on that? Well, as a social scientist I was contacted by the European Commission to participate in a very big research program 10 years ago, a very large research project on forest fires where they wanted to start a shift. They wanted to start a political shift regarding forest fire issues and they realised that they were approaching the project just from the ecological approach, just from the ecological point of view, but they lacked a very important component, which is people. Because forest fires and bushfires are about people.

In Europe, most of the forest fires are human caused, also in Australia even if it is burning country and the nature of fires are a very important problem, people are either at the origin, either at the consequence of this problem, and we have to deal with people. It is very related to political decisions if we are in the good or in the bad track.

So they asked me to participate in this project because we were dealing with social, economical and political aspects in rural areas and [unclear] in forest lands and we started to work about that. It was amazing to discover the very huge social component of this project and to discover that we don't know so much about that.

STEVE GRIMWADE
About the social impacts of bushfires?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
No, not impact, causes and factors. The impact we know it, it's very evident that we are being threatened by wildfires and people are dying and we are losing properties and we are having mega fires all over the world, in California, in Chile, in Portugal, in Australia. We had very recent Queensland wildfires some weeks ago and it is been awful at the same time in California. No, we know very well the impacts.

What we don't know is the factors, and how these factors are interacting with the ecological one and how the landscape dynamics and fire regime are interacting. According with that, how should we deal with this problem in order to mitigate it? What we don't really know is how to live with fire.

STEVE GRIMWADE
To that point, do you think that we accept the fact that fire is a natural part of our lives?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
No. No. I think that we don't really accept that question, that point. We have evolved to a very urban society and fire is considered a risk, not a natural element. We have lost most part of our culture, of our ecological culture, and since the 19th century, politics have introduced the idea that we have to suppress fire and they applied fire exclusion policies. Urban societies feel scattered about fire. Fire is a risk, we don't consider a natural cultural element in our lives.

This is the fact in Europe and I have been realising that it is here in Australia as well. Here in Australia there are many differences, one of them - and you are lucky of having it - is that here you have the Aboriginal culture still alive and cultural burnings, and this fire understanding of Aboriginal cultures is a very strong point for you, and you can use it in order to revive the right fire place in landscape. But in Europe we have not this opportunity.

STEVE GRIMWADE
Are you connecting that to land management practices, that an understanding of the Indigenous view of fire and country is about land management?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Yeah, in the case of Aboriginal cultures fire is a tool for land management but it is more than this because they have the spiritual approach to country, to landscape, and fire is a natural element and fire is a factor of landscape equilibrium . They can easily understand how fire is needed in a balanced way and in a right fire regime to control fuel lot and also to assure biodiversity, native plants, and they have the holistic approach that we are lacking in our culture, in our Western culture. I'm talking from Europe because I'm Spanish, and I think that some way here in Australia this Western culture was also introduced by settlers.

We are facing the problems very often a systemic way, and trying to understand the structures and the dynamics, and trying to find the magic solution. We are very often approaching complex problems in very narrow ways, and the meaning of fire is quite different from one culture to the other.

STEVE GRIMWADE
So much to ask, I've got so much to ask. I want to go to the magic solution first before I go to cultural differences, is the magic solution sprinkle some fairy dust and say that we can prevent fire, or is it reducing its impact on our lives?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
We can prevent fire, we can fight fire, but what should we do? It's not the same what we can and what we should. I think that we should, because it's more effective to mitigate the risk and also to learn living with it. No one of these options is excluded. I mean, we can [compatibilise] all of them, and we should. The question is that we need to be realistic and we need to be aware that we are not being able to avoid fire, to exclude fire, to suppress fire, because fire is a part of landscape, it should be a part of our societies, it is a part of our societies now, but in a very catastrophic way and we have to reverse that.

STEVE GRIMWADE
Does fire have an ecological role or can you say that it has a role in nature?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Absolutely, it has a very important role and this is one of the ways it has been well-understood here in Australia for instance in the state of Victoria, the DELWP, the Department of Environment, Land Planning, is working for instance with Aboriginal communities in order to recover this good fire, this ecological fire, which is improving the biodiversity, which is not only reducing the fuel lot but also improving our lifestyle, our landscape, our environment. Yes, of course, that fire plays a good ecological role. This is one of the problems that we have created, we are trying to exclude it.

STEVE GRIMWADE
How do Australians differ in their approach to fire from Europeans and in particular the Spanish? How does fire sit within the national psyche? Does it? Does it play a big role in Spain? Is it commonplace?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Yeah. I think that there are not too many differences, unluckily, because I think that we are not in the good way. I think that we are not on the good track. There are not so many differences, both of us, the Australian and the European societies, urban societies, Western culture societies, technological societies, with a very powerful position regarding our possibilities options of land management. We are wrong because we are not able to control this monster that we have created, because the current mega fires that we are experiencing in Europe, in Australia, in Chile, in California, everywhere in the world, are the result of our decisions, of our wrong spatial planning, our wrong land management, our wrong fire policies.

We have to change our minds and the way that societies are facing this problem, unluckily, is very similar as well. Societies, the people are expecting public policies to solve this problem and they cannot. It is a common problem for everybody and we need everybody to be responsible for that and to participate on that. We have to change our culture, we have to change also this top down approach from the state government level to communities and societies and to establish an open dialogue. And to give not only opportunities to people to be understood or to be heard, but also to be co-responsible - we are a part of the problem, so we need to be a part of the solution.

This community level, I have realised during this stay here in the University of Melbourne, and working with my colleagues in the university and also in the field with local communities, that maybe here you are more advanced in this starting point of establishing open dialogue bottom up, and to engage different stakeholders in this challenge. I think that you are more advanced than we are in Europe in this change of culture.

STEVE GRIMWADE
Listeners won't be aware but my brow is somewhat furrowed right now because I believe in public policy, so while I'm troubled by the statement that public policy can't save us, I'm equally delighted and excited about the idea of a community-based approach to this. I suspect that maybe the way we're heading in this conversation is that fire is different in every landscape, every landscape is different so therefore, it must be the communities in those landscapes that know those landscapes, they're the only ones that can resolve their local issue. Is fire a local issue?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Not only that. Yes, that's one of the points, but maybe not the most important problem. I also do believe in public policies. I think that they are absolutely needed and this is why it is so important the role of policy makers and the role of policy decisions, that's why. Of course, landscapes are different so they should be treated in a different way, but this is not the key. The key is that you need preparedness in order to do different, you need adaptiveness in order to have resilient landscapes and resilient societies and you need the human presence in the territories in order to deal with the problem. Because public policies are of course essential, but they cannot solve everything and they are not on place.

Places matter, place and time are two very important variables to deal with this problem and you need preparedness, you need people to be engaged and to be able to react and to be able to contribute in a positive way, not only to be at risk but also to be a part of the solution. So I'm not claiming just for a shift from top down to bottom up policies, no, this is not the question. I am claiming for a different approach, really open dialogue, co-decision, co-responsibility, learning to live with fire, be responsible of the problem that everybody is sharing. So if you are sharing the problem you have to share the solution as well. It's cultural change more than a political change.

STEVE GRIMWADE
I would have expected from my very base level understanding of the way Australian firefighting works that we have a huge community involvement via the CFA, and the way they operate in communities, so I would have thought that existed already. So what is it about - how can they co-curate solutions, or even better, can you give me examples where co-curation is working?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
There is a community-based, or an emergent community focused approach in CFA and also in DELWP, in both bodies, and this is a very good approach. CFA are in my opinion in a very good position to work with communities because they have volunteers and they have these community connections and also they are working very good with the Aboriginal communities and with cultural burning and with this very important for you opportunity to do better.

I think that CFA, it's really a very strong positive point that you have, and you should use it because they have the culture of preparedness. They are now in this fire season that you are starting now they have a very good slogan, something like, Are you ready for fire? They are very well connected with communities, but maybe one of the limitations of these opportunities that CFA is just dealing with firefighting. Could be good they have a stronger position in the fire risk mitigation approach.

I mean not only firefighting but also working with cultural issues, which is more than prevention, it is education, it is preparedness, it is this open-learning approach. Not only firefighting but also contributing to fire risk mitigation.

STEVE GRIMWADE
So you're saying the dialogue leads to the risk mitigation?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Yes, absolutely.

STEVE GRIMWADE
How?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Through this process of education, educating society, in order to understand what is the role of fire and what is the place of fire and what is the real problem of fire. Being able to deal with it, not being just at risk but also being a part of the solution, being aware of what are the risky activities and not only activities but attitudes and land management and starting a change.

STEVE GRIMWADE
So is the real problem just being able to deal with it, just accepting that it will happen?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
This is one of the main problems.

STEVE GRIMWADE
I want to get into what is potentially a - not an argument - I want to get into an area which is debated and that is the use of firestick farming and also potentially the idea of how planned burns work or don't work, how prescribed burning works. I guess - I mean, one, I think the term firestick farming which is attributed to Indigenous people in Australia, a lot of people debate whether that existed at all, and then secondly the use of fire by Indigenous people to achieve certain ends is very localised, with every different Indigenous community and nation they do things differently, so there is not one approach to using fire. How do you approach that?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
You are really pointing out the very deep questions, the very important aspects of this change that I am trying to ask for. Fire uses, you know, we have to differentiate, what is traditional fire use and what is planned burn, prescribed burning. Two very different approaches. Please don't ask me to choose what is the good or the better way because they are quite different and they both are useful, interesting and positive in my opinion. But once again, it depends. It depends where, when and how.

If we start by traditional fire uses which are connected here in Australia with Aboriginal communities, well, I think is a very strong opportunity you have to revive this fire culture, which is not exactly a fire culture but it is a holistic approach to country. Aboriginal people talk about country and we talk about landscape, it's really similar and the scales are very similar as well. What is different is the meaning and understanding, we have not the spiritual and the integrative understanding but we can understand, and they can understand, because we are different communities, different cultures, different approaches. I say we because I consider myself as a Western person. But we can and we need to live together and to work together and to learn together in a two-way approach.

So this cultural burning are a very good, useful approach in an obviously regulated framework according with the current situation because we are not living now in the 18th century but in the 21st century, so it is evident that we have to adapt. The current landscapes are not the landscapes that we had at the beginning of the 20th century, so nobody can think that we can deal in the same way now. But the approach is useful now as it was before, so this is a very strong point that you have and it would be crazy to not use it.

Then we have planned burn, yes, the fuel lot reduction with prescribed burning, it's a useful important tool, it is a very positive contribution for fire risk mitigation and we need it. What is the question? The question is that either cultural burning, either planned burning are not the solution and they cannot solve everything and they cannot be either the only way to manage this complex problem. They are needed but nobody can think that planned burning is enough for guaranteeing that your urbanisation, your property, your settlement will be safe. No. Or thinking that cultural burning is the solution for having a safer landscape and then you are solving the problem and recovering a very good fire regime, no.

You need all these tools and more in order to adapt to different landscapes, to different places, to different societies and to different times because you have not the same situation now than 10 years ago or within 10 years or 15 years, and you have not the same situation today than yesterday. You have here in Australia a climate-driven problem, fires are a climate-driven problem, climate change is, for you, a worse problem than it is for us in Europe. Here is a very, very big problem for bushfires.

You have to deal with a very complex problem, you cannot imagine that you are going to solve it efficiently just with cultural burning or just with planned burning, and you cannot say that that's not good because it has not solved my problem. No. Of course it's good and it's needed, but this is not enough.

STEVE GRIMWADE
Are there an equal number of women in fire management as there are men and has this got any implications for the study and management of fire?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
That's a very nice question, I like that. No, there are not enough women in this area. You know, very recently a scientific journal called Fire has published an editorial which is called Women in Fire. They have selected or recognised the 145 women in the world that are leading science about fire ecology or fire management or fire sociology, different aspects of fire. One hundred and forty-five in the world. There are more but it is very few the amount, very few number, and then in the operational teams less.

Why? Well, because we have a very male society and we have excluded women and women don't feel [called] enough, not yet, to participate in fire management. But you know, I was surprised when attending two weeks ago a community meeting here in Australia in Newstead, Talking Fire was the name of this community-based meeting with the participation of the State of Victoria, government bodies, CFA, DELWP and others. Most of the participants were women, and the women's voice is very strong and we are half of the society and we have a different approach and we have a different understanding. Our understanding is needed.

We are dealing with a complex problem and let me say that we are very complex as well, women, and maybe our voice and our understanding is useful - when I say maybe, I mean that it is. I'm a woman, I'm very feminist, I'm very activist and I like very much working with women. When I choose and when I decided to start my sabbatical year here in Australia it was because of a woman. It was because of Professor Ruth Beilin. I think that women that are participating in this problem are doing a very good job and very good contribution, but we are very few women at the moment.

STEVE GRIMWADE
How does a women's approach to fire management or the study of fire differ?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
It's completely different, it's a more flexible approach and it is not focused in one or two issues, it is more integrative, and above all it is a more adaptive approach. It is different, yeah. We are different.

STEVE GRIMWADE
What or who inspired you to study fire?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
It was one very good friend of mine, it was a man, it is Professor Francisco Rego, he is a very important person in the international fire community. He was the president, the head of the European Forest Institute, he was the political responsible person in Portugal for many years of forests, and he was a professor in the United States. He is a very strong person in the fire community in the world. He was leading the European project of Fire Paradox that started in 2006, so he is an engineer, he is a man, but he has a very open mind.

He was the person that realised that it was needed a change in Europe regarding fire policies and fire management, and it was absolutely needed to introduce social sciences and social aspects and social points of view, and that they couldn't deal with the problem just from the engineering or ecological and male approach.

So he asked me to participate in this huge European project. It was a challenge because I was working at that moment just with forest geography issues, environmental history issues, rural development issues, also public policy assessment, but I had not really worked on fire, that was a challenge. Since that year we are mostly only working on that.

STEVE GRIMWADE
You mentioned the words fire paradox, I'm interested in that idea, do you love fire? Do you fear it? Do you respect it? Do you understand it? What is your personal relationship?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
I try to understand it. I don't fear it but I don't think that I understand it really. I try to understand it. I respect it and I recognise that I am a very urban person, I have never tried to deal with fire as fire management. I have very good friends and colleagues, firefighters, fire managers, fire ecologists, but I am not. I am very proud of being her colleague and her friend, but I have never really managed it. So I cannot say that I understand fire, that's not true. But I try to understand it, I respect it, and I know and understand that we were wrong and we have to change our minds about it.

STEVE GRIMWADE
How would you describe the current approach to bushfires and management in Victoria?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Well, as far as I have understood after these three months staying here and after having talked with people from CFA, from DELWP, from communities, from Aboriginal communities and different organisations, my opinion is that here in Victoria there are two very separated positions regarding fire issues. In one spectrum you have people that think that we are not burning enough, we need more fire in order to reduce fuel lot and to reduce fire risk and to be safer. They think that it is needed, planned burning, prescribed fire, and we need more fire in order to avoid wildfires. This is the position, this is the spectrum where for instance DELWP is and this is the approach of Safer Together bushfire management plans and the government of the State of Victoria in general.

The other spectrum on the opposite thinks that we burn too much, there is too much use of fire and we don't really know what is the impact of that. We don't really have enough evidence to prove and to be sure that we need fire in order to reduce fuel lot. We have not evidence that this is the good track. Well, an ecologist, urban society and other groups of stakeholders, social actors are on this spectrum.

Two very different focused and very extreme positions, and between them you have a lot of territory. You have between the most part of the state, you have the landscape, you have the Aboriginal communities, you have the rural societies, you have the municipalities, you have the communities. You have place and people between these two extreme social spectrums of approaches to fire. So what is the challenge? I think that not the solution but the challenge to start a shift and to do it different and to cope with the problem and to mitigate risk and to learn together. What is the challenge? To build the bridge between these two spectrums, because in the middle you have not the solution but you have the opportunities, you have the means, because it's not acceptable to understand that either one spectrum, either the other are right. Maybe both of them are right and both of them are wrong, but what about the middle?

When I talk with a person, with a manager in the CFA and I put him the question, where is the CFA? He answered to me in a very wise way, he said to me, CFA is in the three positions, in one spectrum, in the other spectrum, and another in the middle. CFA is willing to learn and to work with everybody. But, you know, the frameworks that you have still now are as the frameworks that we have in Europe very narrow in adapted frameworks to deal with the problem. We need new governance mechanisms and we need to build bridges, not to focus on positions and spectrums.

STEVE GRIMWADE
We spoke about magic earlier. I'm giving you a magic wand, you have not only the Prime Minister but you have the Premier in the room and you're enabling them to do one thing. What can they do to help us accept or minimise or mitigate the risk of bushfires? What are you asking them to do?

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Above all to listen, to listen. If it is the Prime Minister I would recommend him to listen, to listen to communities, to listen to firefighters, to listen to people who are dealing with the problem. To listen, to listen.

I have a very bad feeling, because first thinking, first reaction is it was so clear. You cannot really see it? You cannot really understand that we have to deal otherwise that this is a spatial problem, that this is a social problem, that this is a cultural problem? Don't you understand it? Are you really so selfish to think that you're safe in this beautiful landscape so close to the forest in a so idyllic lifestyle? Are you really so stupid people? You cannot understand that you are in a territory at risk, you are not able to understand that? Are you surprised of all that? We have a very strong problem.

How I feel? I don't know if this is the right word in English but we call in Spanish ‘indignada’, [indignant] maybe in English, I don't know. Upset. I get upset, I get upset with politicians and above all with politicians and also with the whole society. Not at all with land managers, with firefighters, with people working on those issues, that for me are very, very respectful people. I work with them and I think that they are doing a very good needed strong difficult work so well. They do their best and they are fighting with a monster which is the fire problem that we have created, all of us, and then with society that are not cooperating with this problem and are just waiting for someone who is coming to solve this problem, and then with politicians that are not listening, that are not willing to take a difficult decision and to change the way that things are being done.

So I feel upset, I feel very upset and very [solidarity] with firefighters, with land managers, with scientists, with technicians, with volunteers, with all of these people that are doing a great job and feel and are alone. Because they have not the engagement and the cooperation of society and politicians.

STEVE GRIMWADE
Professor Cristina Montiel Molina, they are listening to you now. Thank you very much for joining us today.

CRISTINA MONTIEL MOLINA
Thank you.

CHRIS HATZIS
Thank you to Professor Cristina Montiel Molina from the Complutense University of Madrid. And thanks to our reporter Steve Grimwade.

Eavesdrop on Experts - stories of inspiration and insights - was made possible by the University of Melbourne. This episode was recorded on December 19, 2018. You’ll find a full transcript on the Pursuit website. Audio engineering by me, Chris Hatzis. Co-production - Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath. Eavesdrop on Experts is licensed under Creative Commons, Copyright 2019, The University of Melbourne. Don’t forget to drop us a review on iTunes, and check out the rest of the Eavesdrop episodes in our archive. I’m Chris Hatzis, producer and editor. Join us again next time for another Eavesdrop on Experts.