167 - Building Canadian Wildfire Culture with Kelsey Winter, Shelagh Pyper and Garnet Mierau

Host Matthew Kristoff discusses the launch of the Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada (WRCC) with leaders Shelagh Pyper, Kelsey Winte r , and Garnet Mierau. The conversation focuses on the urgent need to move past fragmented efforts to a unified, "whole of society" approach for managing Canada's wildfire crisis. The WRCC aims to connect knowledge producers (researchers, firekeepers) with users (policymakers, practitioners) to build national fire resilience. 🌟 Key Points 🌟 👉 Experts advocate for a societal shift to embrace fire as a beneficial, essential part of life, moving beyond mere coexistence. 👉 The WRCC's mission is to end fragmented decision-making by uniting partners, values, and stakeholders in one location. 👉 The current period is seen as a key moment in Canadian history to build a robust, holistic, and resilient wildfire future. 👉 The next and final YourForest episode will summarize and review the "large-scale lessons learned" throughout the podcast's run. 💬 Quotes 💬 [00:09:16] Shelagh Pyper: "I'm one of the principals at fuse, and that's what our specialty is, just bridging knowledge, producers with knowledge users and research practitioners, communities, also working with Indigenous communities and Indigenous knowledge and trying to connect those dots." [00:20:11] Kelsey Winter: "Now the wildfire situation is to a point that we're past the tipping point, and if we don't do something different, we'll just keep having the second worst, the first worst season over and over again. So I think the time is now." [00:13:44] Garnet Mierau: "I know, and I believe in this work that it can be done and that connection of the knowledge from the academic side or whether it's an INDIGENOUS fire keeper to that practitioner, that policymaker, that individual on the ground, I know that there's a strong need to make those connections." ⌛ Takeaways with Complete Timestamps ⌛ [00:00:05] - Embracing Fire as Part of Living [00:00:55] - Podcast Introduction and Host's New Role with the WRCC [00:02:49] - Introduction of Speakers: Roles and Expertise in Fire Resilience [00:05:39] - The Genesis of the WRCC: Addressing Silos in Wildfire Management [00:16:59] - The WRCC as a Network Connector, Not a Singular Centre of Excellence [00:19:39] - Past the Tipping Point: Why the WRCC is Critical Now [00:22:41] - Wildfire as a "Whole of Society" Complex Onion [00:25:50] - Defining and Co-Designing Wildfire Resilience in a Vast Country [00:31:24] - Setting Strategic Priorities: The Three Pillars of Wildfire Management [00:41:36] - Building Trust and Fostering Authentic Collaboration at Scale [01:13:24] - Colonialism and Fire Exclusion as the Core Systemic Problem [01:24:44] - The Need for Action Follow the guest on: 👉 Shelagh Pyper: 👉 Kelsey Winter: 👉 Garnet Mierau: Sponsors 👉 West Fraser: htt ps:// 👉 GreenLink Forestry Inc.: Follow YourForest Podcast on: 👉 Website: 👉 YouTube: 👉 Facebook: 👉 Instagram: 👉 LinkedIn: 👉 Twitter: 👉 Email: yourforestpodcast@gmail.com If you liked this podcast, please rate and review it on your favourite platform! 🌟

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167 - Building Canadian Wildfire Culture with Kelsey Winter, Shelagh Pyper and Garnet Mierau is an episode from YourForest by Matthew Kristoff.

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This episode was published on Nov 19, 2025.

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