2013 has been a deadly year for wildland firefighters, including the loss of 19 members of a hotshot crew on a fire near Yarnell, Arizona. Their shocking deaths raised new questions about firefighting policy - and about the proper response to our changing climate and growing wildland urban interface.
These are issues renowned environmental historian Char Miller has been pondering and writing about for some time.
Miller was in Missoula this week to lecture at the University of Montana. The director of the Environmental Analysis program at Pomona College is an expert on U.S. environmental history and politics, and public land management.
"The science is really clear...that this [climate change] is happening. If birds can figure it out, if aspens can figure it out, why can't human beings?"
In this feature interview, Miller talks with News Director Sally Mauk about the Yarnell tragedy - and the questions it provoked.
