Sasha Berleman

Where I came from:

I was a weird, socially awkward child privileged to grow up in what was a tiny rural southern California town. While people were scary and anxiety inducing for me, I found peace roaming the open hills around my home, admiring buckwheat and jackrabbits and listening to coyotes sing at night. My family wasn’t particularly outdoorsy, so I found myself always yearning to learn more about these places that brought me so much peace.

Over the course of my growing years, I watched these open hills become endless seas of tract homes and shopping centers as my rural hometown became an affordable commuter metropolis. I became deeply affected by my species’ extractive and destructive power over the natural world, by a growing wedge driven between me and these outdoor spaces that had brought me such peace, and a feeling of guilt over being part of this system of destruction.

Simultaneously, wildfire had also been terrifying force in my growing years - I remembered headlines about homes being burned, days of heavy ash and smoke when we couldn’t go outside or go to school, and recurring night terrors where I’d desperately try to save my family from a massive flaming front. After a century of suppression and massive development amongst chaparral-covered fire-dependent hills, fire was touted as the enemy - something to be feared and battled, but never with any context for how we got there.

A turning point, and inspiration:

When the day finally came that I learned about fire’s role in our ecosystems and people’s millenia-deep role in that process, my entire world view changed. During community college in a docent training program, I learned that all of these ecosystems around me are dependent on fire, that without fire as a tending form of renewal, there were fire dependent wildflowers that would never germinate, that acorns were being decimated by pest insects and stood no chance of becoming trees or food for wildlife, that vernal pools and all the rare species they contain were being overgrown and drying up. And I learned that in much of California, not only was the same narrative true, but that Indigenous peoples, since time immemorial, had been the ones to tend these ecosystems with intentional fire. I learned also, that if we brought this good fire back, and if we built fire-adapted cultures, our wildfires could be far less destructive than I was used to, someday.

Finally, for once, I could see a role for humanity that was tending rather than destructive, where people were integral to the natural world and part of it. In a world so full of problems that felt intractable, this felt like an opportunity for positive change that could be realized within a lifetime. So I set about dedicating myself to this cause, because this sense of purpose gave me a sense of place in the world - a feeling of belonging - and I wanted to create space for that sense of belonging for any and all others who showed interest.

Where it’s taken me:

This led me to develop the Fire Forward program in the North Bay Area. We trained any and all community members who expressed interest to NWCG standards for wildland fire, planned prescribed burns for ecological objectives, then organized our operations to ensure span of control to include all those who were interested in fireline operations. We worked with the state to develop a state burn boss program so that becoming a prescribed burn leader was more accessible. This eventually turned into development of our Fellowship Program - the most dedicated community members who had shown up on all of our burns committed over 300 hours of time in one year to growing their fireline leadership skills and become most of state’s first few cohorts of state-certified burn bosses. We then developed an Apprentice program which hired five full-time employees brand new to prescribed fire for one-year each to develop their fireline and ecosystem stewardship skills in full-time paid positions, recognizing that not everyone who wants and deserves to build these skills can afford to do so through volunteerism. As we finished the first year of this Apprenticeship, we developed our Practitioner squad to model long-term career track positions in prescribed fire and ecosystem stewardship, setting up a program that had Apprentices, Practitioners, Squad Leaders, Crew Lead, and a whole ecosystem of program leadership positions ranging from Project Manager, Training Manager, Ecologist, Communications, Administrative Support, Community/Partner Engagement, and more. We aimed to create a model of what this employment ecosystem could look like, including a range of entry to leadership positions that included or required both fireline skills and supporting/adjacent skills, recognizing that everyone has something to offer.

Meanwhile, the cohorts of Fellows that we had trained up were starting their own programs with their own employers and communities around us. State Parks and Regional Parks developed their own prescribed fire crews staffed with folks who had also come up through our community. Bilingual community members and folks on our team began leading trainings in Spanish which turned into local burns led and conducted in Spanish or bilingually. Others began organizing trainings specifically for queer or BIPOC community members. And slowly our community grew more inclusive, saw more job opportunities appear. And this effort became a movement with a life of its own and so many beautiful, diverse voices leading the charge and collaborating hand-in-hand with fire agencies.

While this community continues to grow, diversify, and thrive, I am now at the start of a new adventure, working for The Nature Conservancy as Appalachians Fire Director. I am enjoying continued professional growth, new challenges, and new opportunities to contribute to positive change, and am getting to learn and burn across the 18 states that make up the Appalachians in the US while supporting a national fire program within the organization. Time will tell what legacy I may leave here, but I’m enjoy the journey along the way.

Achievements:

I am grateful to have become a federally qualified burn boss over the years, through the constant and dedicated support of so many around me, granting me incredible and diverse opportunities to build my depth and range of understanding in wildland fire, and I’m so excited to continue learning and growing these skills until the end of my time here.

I believe my greatest professional achievement to date is my contribution to the development of a fire-empowered community in the North Bay area of California, and that also was only possible through the dedication and interest of the great, inspired community of folks who were there to begin with.

I work my tail off to always be improving my physical fitness and outdoing myself while tending to my overall well-being so that I can show up for the work and for others as my best self, and I can happily say that I can run faster and further than ever, lift more and carry more, and am better rested and hydrated than ever before these days.

Accomplishments:

• Resolution of Recognition from California Senate for my impact in the CA prescribed fire world
• Federally qualified burn boss RXB2
• First CA State Certified Burn Boss
• Always kept up and worked my hardest and learned as much as I could when I had the privilege to be on Redding Hotshot Crew
• Moderately skilled with a chainsaw and at trailer backing, and always seeking to grow
• PhD in fire ecology, despite never having been a great academic
• Having overcome and continuing to work to overcome many of the sillier ingrained gender role notions I’ve subconsciously carried
• Being a great partner and dog parent, and supporting my friends and community while tending to my own well-being

What Mystery Ranch Packs do you Run?

Obviously, the HOTSHOT TL and the MONSTER for any/all fire assignments, with the bedroll for my sleeping set up.
In my current work I travel a lot for trainings, workshops, conferences, meetings, and site visits as well, though, and for those, I really love the following for different use cases:

• Overhead Carry-on: MISSION ROVER
• Roadtrip Bag: MISSION DUFFEL
• Under-seat Carry-on: 3-WAY BRIEFCASE or RIP RUCK 24
• Toiletries: I’m obsessed with the large MISSION DOPP and actually just keep all my essential toiletries in it all the time so when I need to pack for a trip there’s no effort involved there - I just zip and go.

Other Sponsors:

None :) MYSTERY RANCH or bust, I suppose!

Favorite quote

“I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”
- Attributed to Jack London, though this is sometimes disputed