Human Elements: Healing forests with fire
By studying how Indigenous societies use fire, ecologist Ernesto Alvarado is learning how we can fight wildfires.
Ernesto Alvarado’s childhood was filled with fire. He learned of its danger and its promise while growing up in Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert — how it could both destroy the things that grew on the land and bring them back. As a professor of wildfire ecology at the University of Washington, Alvarado now studies Indigenous cultures around the world, integrating and elevating their ecological knowledge to get a fuller picture of how ecosystems work.