Air Date: July 25, 2025

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EPA Shutting Down Independent Research


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The US Environmental Protection Agency is shutting down its Office of Research and Development, which represents 50 years of independent scientific research. Kyla Bennett is director of science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and she joined host Aynsley O’Neill to discuss the impact on EPA employees and science. (09:52)

Former Park Leader Speaks Out


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National Parks are undergoing increased layoffs and funding cuts under the second Trump administration. Former Crater Lake superintendent Kevin Keatley joined Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran to discuss how funding cuts are impacting NPS employees and why he quit just after 5 months. (12:14)

Censorship in US National Parks


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President Trump has ordered the Department of the Interior to review historic monuments and memorials, and remove any content that might be perceived as negative or unpatriotic. Independent historian Donna Graves joined host Aynsley O’Neill to discuss some National Parks that show America’s complex history and how these federal actions can lead to censorship. (08:40)

Zombie Fires in Canada


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Wildfire season has scorched nearly 14 million acres in Canada this year, degrading air quality as far downwind as Montreal, Detroit and Philadelphia. A particularly dangerous kind of wildfire, known as “zombie fire”, can survive through the winter months by smoldering underground. Professor of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University Patrick Louchouarn joined Living on Earth’s executive producer Steve Curwood to discuss this phenomenon. (15:35)

Show Credits and Funders

Show Transcript

250725 Transcript

HOSTS: Aynsley O’Neill

GUESTS: Kyla Bennett, Donna Graves, Kevin Heatley, Patrick Louchouarn

[THEME]

O’NEILL: From PRX – this is Living On Earth.

[THEME]

O’NEILL: I’m Aynsley O’Neill

A National Park superintendent quits and speaks out after major staff cuts.

HEATLY: It's that kind of decision-making that made it untenable to continue to work at Crater Lake, because Crater Lake will suffer significantly, and services and the resources will suffer if the administration continues to pursue this course of action.

O’NEILL: Also, Censorship and the importance of protecting history in national parks like the Manzanar National Historic Site.

GRAVES: It was a really hard time, and it's important that we have places that help us see mistakes we've made in the past so that we can heal wounds and also prevent tragedies in the future.

O’NEILL: That and more, this week on Living on Earth. Stick around!

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[NEWSBREAK MUSIC: Boards Of Canada “Zoetrope” from “In A Beautiful Place Out In the Country” (Warp Records 2000)]

[THEME]

EPA Shutting Down Independent Research

O’NEILL: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios at the University of Massachusetts Boston, this is Living on Earth. I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says it’s going to shut down its Office of Research and Development. Though the agency is couching the move as just the latest in a series of staff and budget cuts, the Office represents 50 years of independent scientific research. It’s estimated that hundreds of ORD employees will be reassigned or let go as a new research branch is founded directly under the office of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. The announcement was welcomed by industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, which said the new system would be more efficient. Kyla Bennett is director of science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and she joins me now. Kyla, welcome back to Living On Earth.

BENNETT: Thank you so much for having me.

O'NEILL: So, Kyla, tell us, what is the Office of Research and Development under the EPA? Why is that office so important?

BENNETT: This work that the people at ORD do does everything from protecting the public from harmful chemicals, to setting air quality standards, working on climate change issues, keeping our drinking water safe, and they also fund a lot of research elsewhere, academia, and other places. So, it's a super important, theoretically, independent division, which is much needed by EPA.

O'NEILL: And when you say independent, what's the significance of this being an independent office?

BENNETT: EPA can be politically susceptible. We have seen it numerous times, particularly in the Pesticides Office and the New Chemicals Office, where industry has a lot of sway over EPA decision making, and that is under all administrations, not just this administration, although it's much worse under the Trump administration, but ORD was always meant to be independent and outside the reigns of the political appointees. It's supposed to be a purely science section that does the science and informs and supports what the rest of EPA is doing without that political interference, and by eliminating this office and subsuming those duties, or some of them anyway, into the regular parts of EPA, we're losing that independence.

O'NEILL: Well, I've seen that the EPA has previously announced plans to create a new office called the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions. However, instead of it being independent, it'll be under the Office of the Administrator. What do you make of that move?

BENNETT: I think it's really plain to see that what they're doing is they're making this office that reports directly to Administrator, Lee Zeldin, so that he can influence and manipulate their decisions. So, it's exactly the opposite of what we have now and exactly the opposite of what we want.

O'NEILL: And to what extent can other offices do the work of the ORD?

BENNETT: Well, they can't really. I mean, one good piece of news is that they did announce in an all-hands meeting that they are not going to get rid of the labs, and they can't really get rid of the labs. There are EPA ORD labs scattered across the country. We have two here in New England. There's one in the Midwest. They're all over, and the reason they can't get rid of them is because they're statutorily mandated, so getting rid of them would be violating those statutes. But that being said, these people in the labs are now going to be reporting to the people who report directly to Lee Zeldin, so they will now become susceptible to that political interference.

O'NEILL: And Kyla, please explain to us what those labs are actually doing.

BENNETT: The labs actually do research. They collect water samples and air samples, they look at wildfires and check the smoke. They generate data and develop methodologies to study the impacts of chemicals or air pollution or global warming, so they're actually doing the research. Most people, when they think about EPA, they probably think about people in white coats with, you know, a Bunsen burner and an Erlenmeyer flask, actually doing experiments. And the people in the regions and headquarters don't actually do that. The only people that actually do that are the Ord people. So, while that research will continue in a more limited amount, the information that they generate will now be politically susceptible, and that's a huge problem.

O'NEILL: And so, Kyla, what does this announcement that they'll be closing this office— What does that mean in terms of the implications for environmental protection?

BENNETT: The implications of closing ORD are huge, and no one should be fooled by the agency's announcement that these key ORD functions will be absorbed into EPA's existing offices. They're going to be firing, I don't know, maybe about 1000 people. We don't even know yet. But what this means is that Americans will no longer have the benefit of all this science which protects their everyday life. I don't think the American public fully appreciates how much EPA does for them behind closed doors. When you turn on your tap, and you can fill up a cup of water and drink it. When you go outside, and you can take a jog and breathe the air. When you can grow a vegetable garden, when you can do all of these things that we do every single day, we can do it thanks to EPA without ORD, testing and looking into issues and problems and toxic chemicals and pollution, and even water quality and water quantity, we're flying blind. We really won't be able to tell whether Americans can safely drink the water, safely breathe the air, or safely do anything that they usually do in their day-to-day lives.

O'NEILL: Already, under the second Trump administration, the EPA has seen a great reduction in numbers, many of employees being fired, many employees resigning, all sorts of things like this. What does the closing of this office mean on a personal level for the employees who previously worked in ORD?

BENNETT: There are people who literally make careers out of this because they love their work. They love what they do. They love protecting human health and the environment. And working at EPA was a good way to do that. And you know, for a lot of these federal employees, their spouses or partners are also federal employees. And I know of several people, clients, whose spouses have been “RIF-ed” from another federal agency, and now they're being “RIF-ed” as well. These people who are being “RIF-ed”, and “RIF” means a reduction in force, and that's what EPA is calling this. Although we don't believe that they were following the correct procedures for an actual RIF. So, it's devastating to families. It's going to be devastating to the real estate market in Washington, DC. It's going to be devastating to these families, their children, everybody. It's just horrifying.

O'NEILL: And Kyla, let's say in the next election, we elect a president who wants to bring back an independent Office of Research and Development at the EPA. How easy is it going to be for a potential future ORD to fix what has been broken?

BENNETT: I think it's unfortunately going to be very, very difficult for a couple reasons. First of all, the agency is going to be staffed with mostly the people who will be loyal to Trump and his administration. I mean, they're asking for that type of loyalty pledge. Second, we're losing the historical knowledge. We're losing the very people, the scientists who are fleeing. People are fleeing to other countries. It's going to be hard to get that back. The experience that some of these scientists have, having worked at the agency for decades, is really, really difficult to replace. And while nobody is truly irreplaceable, when you have this attack on an agency at such a large scale, we're losing so much institutional knowledge. There's such a big brain drain that it's going to take us decades that we cannot afford to get it back.

O'NEILL: And this is going to have such wide-reaching implications, and lots of people are obviously going to be very dramatically affected. Who would you say this is going to hurt the most?

BENNETT: That's the interesting thing about this. It's going to hurt everybody, and it's very different from getting food poisoning. So, if you eat a bad tuna fish sandwich and you're vomiting six hours later, it's not going to be like that. But in six months, a year, two years, we're going to start to see more illnesses. We're going to start to see scarcity of water. We're going to start to see more smog. We're going to start to see worse climate events. It will come slowly but surely, and it's going to be affecting everybody who lives in this country.

O'NEILL: Kyla Bennett is the Director of Science Policy at public employees for environmental responsibility. Kyla, thank you so much for joining me today.

BENNETT: Thank you so much for having me.

Related links:
- Inside Climate News | “Dismantling of EPA’s Scientific Research Arm Fulfills Key Chemical Industry Goal”
- Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
- Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility | “EPA Shuts Down Its Scientific Research Office”
- Environmental Protection Agency | “EPA Announces Reduction in Force, Reorganization Efforts to Save Taxpayers Nearly Three-Quarters of a Billion Dollars”
- Wired | "Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office"

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[MUSIC: No em pingo D’agua, “Salvador” on Visom-Contemporary Instrumental Music from Brazil, by Egberto Gismonti/arr.Mario Seve and Rodrigo Lessa, Visom-A Windham Hill Sampler]

O’NEILL: If you enjoy the stories you hear on Living on Earth, please consider signing up for our newsletter. You’ll never miss a show, and you’ll have special access to show highlights, notes from our staff, and advanced information about upcoming events. The Living on Earth newsletter is sent to your inbox weekly. Don't miss out! Subscribe at the Living on Earth website, loe.org, that's loe.org. And by the way, you'll also find photos, links to more information, and a full transcript of every single show. And we'd love to hear from you. You can write to us anytime at comments@loe.org. That's comments@loe.org.

[MUSIC: Miles Davis, “All Blues” on The Columbia Years 1955-1985, Sony Music Entertainment]

O’NEILL: Coming up, staffing cuts and censorship in America’s national parks. Stay tuned to Living on Earth!

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the Waverley Street Foundation, working to cultivate a healing planet with community-led programs for better food, healthy farmlands, and smarter building, energy and businesses.

[CUTAWAY MUSIC: Miles Davis, “All Blues” on The Columbia Years 1955-1985, Sony Music Entertainment]

Former Park Leader Speaks Out

O’NEILL: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

You may be planning a national park visit this summer, but whether you’re camping in Yosemite or hiking in Shenandoah, you might notice that there’s fewer staff around. That’s because National Parks are undergoing significant changes under the second Trump administration. There’s been increased layoffs and budget cuts, stretching park employees thin to perform additional duties. To learn more, we called up Kevin Heatley, who has worked in leadership positions with the Bureau of Land Management. In January of this year, he took on the National Park role of Superintendent of Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. But he resigned after 5 months due to concerns about the physical and mental health of NPS employees as they scramble to do more work with fewer people. Kevin Heatley joined Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran to share more.

BELTRAN: So, Crater Lake is the fifth National Park established in the U.S. What makes Crater Lake a must-visit destination for summer travelers?

HEATLEY: Ah yes, Crater Lake is iconic. It was formed about 7000 years ago by an explosion of Mount Mazama and then the collapse into a crater, caldera, that subsequently filled with water. And it's one of the deepest lakes in the world, and one of the clearest lakes in the world. And it's just awe-inspiring. It's a sacred location to the Indigenous people, the Klamath tribes, and rightly so. So, it's a place of spiritual and cultural significance that is inspiring. No one goes to Crater Lake and doesn't have their jaw drop, so it's strongly recommended that every thoughtful American citizen put it on their bucket list.

BELTRAN: And now you resigned from your position as superintendent at the end of May, after just five months at Crater Lake. Tell me more about why you made that decision.

HEATLEY: Yeah, resigning from superintendent position in an iconic location like Crater Lake is not a decision that is taken lightly. It's something that I agonized about. But in general, since the administration took over on January, 20, they have been actively engaged in dismantling the national park system and undermining the ability of these parks to function. Prior to the current administration, Crater Lake was already down 40% in permanent staff, and now, according to the internal data that was accessed by the National Parks Conservation Association, national parks across the board have seen about a 24% reduction in staffing since the current administration took over. So, I'll give you an example: back in February, on February 14, we had what is euphemistically referred to as the “St Valentine's Day Massacre”, where the probationary employees were all fired, in the Department of Interior, they fired all the probationary employees, National Park Service. The email that went to thousands of employees indicated that their performance did not warrant their continued employment, which was a completely fallacious statement. There was nothing behind that. They had no idea what this individual did, what their role was, or what their performance was. So, it was ludicrous. I would speculate that the administration is just making a blanket approach to reduce the size of the workforce with no strategic understanding of how they can enhance efficiency. It's that kind of decision-making that made it untenable to continue to work at Crater Lake, because Crater Lake will suffer significantly, and services and the resources will suffer if the administration continues to pursue this course of action.

BELTRAN: And how has staff at the National Park Service been impacted by these federal decisions?

HEATLEY: The National Park Service personnel has been disrespected routinely, the instability with respect to the reduction in force—when is that going to happen?, who might get reduced? The St Valentine's Day Massacre, all this directly impacts the morale of the individuals employed by Crater Lake and the National Park Service at large. The other big issue is that we don't know who was going to leave with respect to the buyout offers. So far, there's been three of them. And they came unsolicited. Emails came out to individuals—that you can go on deferred resignation, “You'll be on leave until the end of September”, then there was a buyout offer that came out if you left by the end of May, and a lot of the key people, particularly at headquarters and regional, people that we've depended upon for support, they're gone. They're completely gone. They left, they retired earlier, or they went on to jobs in the private sector. So, it's been very destabilizing, like, who would go to work for the federal government, if this is the kind of reckless decision-making that is routinely being made? No one, no one that really wants to have a long-term career.

BELTRAN: And you know, Crater Lake is dear to thousands, if not millions, of people. How is the visitor experience at Crater Lake being impacted by these decisions, do you think?

HEATLEY: Crater Lake, from the standpoint of the general public, it's not obvious that there's any issues. We have staff routinely that were putting in 60 hours of overtime in a two-week pay period in order to assure that the work got done. A good example would be snow removal. Crater Lake is one of the snowiest places on the planet. Got over 36 feet of snow last year. They're still plowing snow in the middle of July to open up some of the roads. So, snow removal is a major effort at Crater Lake. Well, how long do you think you can continue to have employees working 60 hours of overtime in a pay period? That's not sustainable, and if one of those employees that knows how to operate those huge snow blowers and massive snow plows, if one of those individuals leaves, that'll mean that some of these roads will not get the maintenance, particularly over the winter months, that we've had in the past and that visitors expect, and the buildup of ice and snow on the roads could be a direct hazard to the general public. But that's how tenuous, that's how unstable the operation is right now. Again, at this point, the general public that goes to Crater Lake, they most likely won't experience any major changes, with the exception perhaps, of the interpretive rangers. These are the rangers that do the campfire chats, that take you out and talk about the wildlife and the ecology and the lake and the geology, and these are the ones that educate the public. At one time, there were 16 to 18 each year. And at this point, Crater Lake is down to, I think it's five.

BELTRAN: And how is this attack on the Park Service also impacting scientists, researchers, and historians who work behind the scenes to ensure the park is running smoothly?

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HEATLEY: Oh, it's a tremendous impact. It's a tremendous impediment to getting the job done because they don't have the support. Give you an example, Crater Lake has significant investment in monitoring and really devoted people that have made a career as fisheries biologists, as climatologists, as foresters and ecologists at the National Park Service. What did they prioritize, the administration, when it came to processing applications for seasonals? It was for people that were public-facing, the people that clean the restrooms, that run the fee booths, and that's all important services, but things like the biological monitors, those positions didn't receive the same level of prioritization. So, what's one of the best ways to avoid information that you find potentially could upset your economic interest?—Is let's just not collect the data. Let's not collect the information, and then it doesn't exist. And that's problematic. This ostrich-in-the-sand idea that you can just stick your head in the ground and oh, climate change isn't real because we stopped collecting all the data.

BELTRAN: And the Trump administration has also proposed transferring smaller, less visited national parks to the state level. What have you been hearing from the National Park Service community about this potential transfer?

HEATLEY: It's apparent that the administration does not value the National Park system in the same way that the American public does. And those cultural parks, those smaller parks, they have an important story to tell. Now, if those smaller parks were turned over to the states, they're not going to have the resources to run them properly. Who knows what will be the eventual result if they were to do that. As far as the larger parks, and we've seen this from the administration in some of the language they've used, they don't consider some of these cultural parks real parks. They think of the national parks as the Yosemite. Those are the parks that they consider the real parks. Yet they're undermining those operations also. So, I would speculate, and I think there's been a lot of discussion about this within the National Park Service, within the staff, that the ultimate goal is to see those parks privatized. They'll stay within the federal government system, but they'll be privatized as far as the management. And it's that dismantlement of the national park system, which has done such a phenomenal job for the last hundred plus years, is just unacceptable. To work for the National Park Service, most people that work there consider it an honor. It's their dream job. The American public uniformly loves the National Park system and the National Park Service. Constantly, when we were there, and they realized we were under assault, we would get unsolicited letters and postcards continuously, trying to bolster the morale and giving us offers of support and help, that people just, you know, they they love these national parks. And because a park might be a smaller park unit does not make it less valuable to the system.

BELTRAN: And you know, you mentioned that these parks could be privatized, so I'm wondering, how might this shift affect environmental justice and equity, particularly for communities that have historically faced barriers to accessing public lands?

HEATLEY: Yeah, that is extremely problematic, and it's really disappointing to see a lot of the really good efforts that have been undertaken at the federal government to address these historic injustice—to see them completely dismantled. And the efforts that have been made to, for instance, educate the public about some of the unfortunate, really dark elements of the history of the United States, that's critical to the national park system mission. And right now, we're seeing that initiative that's been undertaken as part of the executive order to "restore truth and sanity to American history." You know the National Park system now, if you go there, they have those QR codes up on the displays, and you can scan the QR code and go to the site and put in a complaint because you don't like that that park display described the historic injustices to the Indigenous population, or it describes the horrific conditions of slavery, or even something as recent as Stonewall. I mean, they're sanitizing the history, and that's what would happen if it was privatized, those things would not be part of the mission, would not be profit-generating, and would be deemphasized in order to make it palatable to as large an audience as possible. And that's not the mission of the National Park Service.

O’NEILL: That’s Kevin Heatley, former Superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, speaking with Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran. We reached out to the National Park Service for comment, but did not hear back in time for broadcast.

Related links:
- Oregon Life |"'I Refuse to Empower the Destruction' Crater Lake Superintendent Resigns Over Trump-Era Cuts"
- Oregon Public Broadcasting | "Crater Lake Superintendent Resigns"
- The New York Times |“Park Service is Left Short-Staffed in Peak Travel Season”
- Explore Crater Lake National Park

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[MUSIC: Alison Brown & Steve Martin, feat. Tim O’Brien, “5 Days Out and 2 Days Back” on a single released March 2025, music by Alison Brown and Steve Martin, words by Steve Martin, Compass Records]

Censorship in US National Parks

O’NEILL: On top of staffing and budget cuts, the National Park Service is also battling censorship. On March 27, President Trump signed an executive order with what some say is a deceptive title, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” One part of the order instructs the Department of the Interior to conduct a review of historic monuments, memorials, and similar properties for content they perceive as negative or unpatriotic. The Parks asked both visitors and employees to report any such information. Also, the order aims to ensure that the content focuses on “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.” But over the last few decades, the Parks have made a priority of incorporating diverse narratives and exploring chapters of our history that hold conflict and discrimination. Independent historian Donna Graves worries that only showing some parts of America’s past in these parks is censorship. She joins me now. Donna, welcome to Living on Earth!

GRAVES: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be with you.

O'NEILL: So, tell us about this executive order regarding the Department of the Interior and our federal lands. How does this impact how history is portrayed across national parks?

GRAVES: The executive order requires the National Park Service to retell American history in a way that this administration feels supportive of, and one of the key phrases that they've used repeatedly is that history that inappropriately disparages Americans past or living needs to be reviewed and removed. The National Park Service has spent decades broadening the way it tells American story. It's been very thoughtful about this process. It's worked with professional historians and communities to find stories associated with national parks that are meaningful, that reflect the history of the site, and to stress how relevant these stories are to the American people. So, if you want to restrict American history to this kind of simplistic, very limited way of telling our nation's stories, you're taking what is a rich and complex past and reducing it to a kind of false narrative about who we are, and that really doesn't do the national parks or the American people any favors.

O'NEILL: And you're based in California, not too far from the Manzanar National Historic Site. Could you tell us a little bit about the history of that place?

GRAVES: Manzanar National Historic Site is one of a collection of places the National Park Service has deemed of great interest because it reflects a period in our history where the government did something shameful. It incarcerated all Japanese Americans on the West Coast during World War II on the premise that they might be threats to the war effort. Now, two-thirds of those people were United States citizens, and all of the over 120,000 people who were rounded up and sent from their homes and businesses and communities found themselves in remote, hastily constructed places that were called “relocation centers”. Really, they were incarcerated for the fact that they were of Japanese descent. This didn't happen to Germans and Italians, who also represented the Axis powers that we were fighting during World War II, and by the 1980s, the federal government admitted that what had happened was a grave mistake and that it was due to war hysteria and racism. So, it was natural then that the National Park Service would try to tell that story and Manzanar was the first of the so-called relocation centers that was designated a National Park. And it tells the story of mostly Japanese Americans from LA who were incarcerated there for several years and lost all of their belongings and then had to reclaim lives after the war in ways that were really difficult. It was a really hard time, and it's important that we have places that help us see mistakes we've made in the past, so that we can heal wounds and also prevent tragedies in the future.

O'NEILL: And Donna, as I understand it, you worked on the Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park. What did you want to champion in that park?

GRAVES: I helped found Rosie the Riveter, World War II, Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, over 25 years ago. It tells the story of the remarkable transformation of American society during World War II, within one city that held the most productive ship building facility in the world at that time, and that productivity relied on a new workforce of women and people of color, for the first time, who'd been previously kept out of those kinds of industrial jobs until so many men going off to fight on the battlefront caused a labor shortage. So, Rosie the Riveter World War II, Home Front Park interprets the incredible achievements of America during World War II, but we also look at the tensions and the—what might be called negative aspects of that history, such as the ongoing discrimination that women and people of color faced and the unjust incarceration of people of Japanese descent on the West Coast.

I became really interested in the connection between World War II and LGBTQ+ history, and realized that World War II was a watershed moment. One prominent historian describes it as America's coming out, and the Bay Area, where Richmond is located, was a place that tens of thousands of war workers came from other parts of the United States, and tens of thousands of military people came through and were briefly stationed in the Bay Area and then shipped off to the battlefront. What they saw in mostly San Francisco was a small but visible queer community that opened mental doors for so many people who lived in communities previously where they couldn't express their sexuality or their gender identification, and so those World War II years became a transforming period where many people who either passed through the Bay area or came here to work in defense factories, who were LGBTQ+ thought “Oh, I could live here, I could be myself here”.

And so, it really increased the trajectory of this area becoming what's described as the queer Mecca. I developed an exhibit about that, and the panels have been integrated into the Rosie the Riveter Visitor Center since 2016. After President Trump issued the executive order and after he made it so clear that his administration was going to target LGBTQ people, especially trans people, who are reflected in the exhibit at Rosie the Riveter, a staff person quietly took the exhibit down, thinking that it was going to protect the park, but a volunteer saw that and was really dismayed and people like that volunteer and myself started organizing to say, no, you can't take that down, it's part of our history. So, Rosie the Riveter put that exhibit back up, and I think that's a really important example of community and park leadership working together to make sure they're telling a story that is meaningful to residents of the Bay Area and to visitors.

O'NEILL: Donna Graves is an independent historian based in Berkeley, California. Donna, thank you so much for joining me today.

GRAVES: Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Related links:
- Learn more about Donna Graves
- Learn more about the Manzanar Historic Site
- Learn more about Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historic Park
- World War II Monuments | “Rosie the Riveter Memorial - Beyond We Can Do It!”
- National Park Service | “NPS Seeking LGBT WWII Stories”

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[MUSIC: Kevin Burke and Cal Scott, “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Waltz” on Across the Black River, by Cal Scott, Loftus Music]

O’NEILL: Just ahead, what happens when you have a wildfire that just won’t die? Keep listening to Living on Earth.

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the estate of Rosamund Stone Zander - celebrated painter, environmentalist, and author of The Art of Possibility – who inspired others to see the profound interconnectedness of all living things, and to act with courage and creativity on behalf of our planet. Support also comes from Sailors for the Sea and Oceana. Helping boaters race clean, sail green, and protect the seas they love. More information @sailorsforthesea.org.

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Zombie Fires in Canada

O’NEILL: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

Wildfire season in Canada is raging, with nearly 14 million acres in the country already scorched this year, degrading air quality as far downwind as Montreal, Detroit, and Philadelphia. While fires are a natural part of the boreal forest ecosystem, increasing global temperatures due to climate change are creating conditions that supercharge these blazes. And now scientists are investigating the potential link between climate change and a particularly threatening kind of wildfire. These are so-called “zombie fires”, or fires that can survive through the winter months by smoldering underground. Patrick Louchouarn is a Professor of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University and he joined Living on Earth host and executive producer Steve Curwood to walk us through what we are learning about this phenomenon.

CURWOOD: So, tell us, what exactly are zombie fires? How are they different from the wildfires most people might see on the news?

LOUCHOUARN: Zombie fires really are fires that live for and burn for a long time. Sometimes, some of these fires might actually catch into the soil. And when you have a lot of organic matter in the soils, and soils are dry enough, then they can actually start fires, particularly peats that dry out can burn. And then when they start burning, they can actually burn for a long time at a very slow rate. And we call them "zombie" because the fires continue burning during winter and re-emerge in the spring. So, they are kind of fires that don't die. Eventually, they die when fuel gets consumed, but they endure for a long time, much longer than what we call above-ground vegetation fires.

CURWOOD: To what extent do these zombie fires extend the fire season there in Canada? Does it mean that we see fires earlier than we might otherwise see wildfires, and might they hang around longer than they might otherwise?

LOUCHOUARN: Well, yes, when they happen, they do, because they tend to actually burn, some of them, for years, and they can actually exist and survive the winter. So, when the spring comes in, and the summer comes in, and it gets warmer again and drier again, then these ground fires can actually help in burning the surface of the vegetation.

CURWOOD: And where are we talking about here on the planet. I've mentioned, of course, Canada. But where else are these zombie fires a phenomenon?

LOUCHOUARN: Well, all around the Arctic Circle. So, of course, Siberia, which is an enormous swath of territory in northern Europe, all the northern European countries of Scandinavia, Alaska, and Canada. So, the entire Arctic circle has a very large region of land. Of course, the Arctic is an ocean, but it's surrounded by this immense amount of land that contains much more organic matter in the soil than there is in the atmosphere. So, there's a huge amount of material and organic carbon in the soils right now. Most of it is frozen, but due to the disruption of the temperature and the climate conditions in these regions, some of it is starting to dry, melt, and being released in rivers, or some of it burns.

CURWOOD: So, these underground fires that can just keep burning and burning, what might the consequences of that be?

LOUCHOUARN: Well, multiple levels. Of course, a much faster return of carbon to the atmosphere that has been trapped for a long time. So basically, a little bit analogous to when we burn fossil fuels. So that's organic matter that is right now sequestered, not available to get back into the cycle of carbon in the earth. If it returns to the atmosphere, it contributes to the radiation balance of the Earth. More CO₂ creates more greenhouse effect. So that's one impact. The second one is, of course, particles. These fires are much less efficient than surface fires because there is a very low proportion of oxygen, so the burning is at a lower temperature. There's a lot of combustion that emits CO₂, but not just CO₂, a lot of particles and other gases. More particles tend to be transported long distances, especially because they're micro particles, long distance due to wind patterns. So, we're going to start seeing more and more air quality decreases and contamination and transport in areas of high population, because we tend to have very large cities in the northern hemisphere that will be affected by the transport of particulate organic matter.

CURWOOD: You're talking about public health problems.

LOUCHOUARN: Absolutely. And I gave a lecture not too long ago, and basically, I said that wildfires are no longer a local problem. At best, they are regional or pan-regional problems. They could be hemispheric problems if you know, you have very large swaths of the northern hemisphere that starts burning every summer season, that releases particles. And we've seen that in 2023, there was a huge amount of those particles that reached both from Central northern United States and Canada all the way to the eastern seaboard. And I was at a conference in Philadelphia, and it was interesting, because we were asked not to leave the hotel. And now it was kind of my worst nightmare. I work on this phenomenon, and suddenly I realized, oh boy, I thought we were several decades away from starting to see this happen, and we even saw it a little earlier this year in the central US states as well. So more and more of that will actually lead to impact to health, particularly for the elderly, the young, individuals who have issues, you know, respiratory vulnerabilities. We will see more and more of this impact at a regional to pan-regional level.

CURWOOD: Why is it harder for firefighters and first responders to tame and extinguish these zombie fires? What's the physics of that? Why can't they do it?

LOUCHOUARN: First of all, there's the remoteness of it. You have to get to these fires. We have to remember that on the northern regions of the Northern Hemisphere are sparsely populated. Just getting to some of these places is really not easy, supporting firefighters to be in those places. The second piece, the physics of it, if they happen underground, it's really hard both to locate where those fires are. You can see some smoke coming out, but it's not as if, when you see surface fires, you have flames, you have vegetation, house burns, you can actually douse them. Really hard to douse these fires, they smolder, so they take a whole lot more effort to extinguish. And then the last piece is, it is dangerous because you have to be on a soil that is burning underneath. So there are some instabilities in the soil. Even bringing machinery could be dangerous because the soil could cave. There are a lot of physical constraints that create real difficulty in addressing them.

CURWOOD: What relationship is there to climate disruption and this phenomenon of perhaps more zombie fires? What's the connection, if any?

LOUCHOUARN: I really appreciate that you use the word climate disruption, because I think this is an important note that climate change normally in some, that change can happen very quickly, particularly for the northern hemisphere this is really important. The Arctic region of the Earth in the northern hemisphere is changing, and has changed at a much higher rate in terms of temperature than other parts of the Earth. That has led to a lot of different changes. Some of those changes lead to more storms, that lead to more fires themselves. There are changes in the hydrological cycles, more drying of the vegetation, and in particular, more drying. And this is the part that actually relates to your question, more drying of the surface soils, more melting of permafrost. And permafrost is very deep organic soils that, of course, as the name implies, they're frozen, but when they actually dry out and melt, that water can actually seep out and the soil can dry, especially under hotter conditions, and that becomes a very available fuel to start burning in smoldering conditions. So, the more we see changes in the upper latitude of the earth in areas that contain an enormous amount of organic matter in soils, then, what happens is you have the potential for that material to become fuel for burning, and especially when they dry.

CURWOOD: What do we know about the frequency of these fires and the trend that's going on?

LOUCHOUARN: Not much. I'll be honest with you. We know they exist. We have a number of examples of how extensive they can be. We don't have much of a way to measure trends. And so one of the things that we do to measure wildfires is we can use satellite and remote sensing imagery, and we can actually—there are ways to calculate how we, you know, fires that exist above ground, and calculate their extent. So, there are a number of ways we can actually start looking on the trends of surface fires. For ground fires, it's really difficult, we haven't actually cracked—there are some studies at the moment, are starting to try to use satellite imagery in terms of differences in temperature of the soil, smoke plumes, to try to identify potentially ground fires. But that's a very difficult one yet and hasn't been resolved. We don't know that there is a trend for an increase in extent and severity of these soil fires at the moment, but I'm not sure we can actually talk of trends. What we can talk about is the potential for the increase both in extent, severity and frequency. But at the moment, we don't have the data, as far as I know, to demonstrate that this is happening. But my sense is that I wouldn't be surprised if you know within the next ten years, and definitely twenty, we see more of those, and the smoke plume events start reaching lower latitudes because of the wind patterns, whether it's in northern United States or it's in northern Europe and Russia we'll start seeing more and more of these events.

CURWOOD: So how concerned are you about this phenomenon, about this likely increase in these so-called "zombie," these ground fires that can put out such toxic levels of particulates?

LOUCHOUARN: Well, I'm very concerned. You know, it was really interesting, because I was, as I mentioned, you know, my Philadelphia experience, you couldn't walk outside. You know, and I consider myself to be healthy. I don't have any respiratory illness, and it was very difficult to be outside for an extended period of time. So, we're going to start seeing millions and millions of people being affected by these haze event that leads to morbidity and mortality. Morbidity being increased levels of illness, mortality, of course, is, you know, death. So I'm concerned that we don't understand that the increase of wildfires, whether they're above ground or below ground, lead to an increased level of particulate matter into the atmosphere that leads to massive public health events that limit life expectancy, affect a number of individuals across the board.

CURWOOD: So, let's follow it up a moment. I'm a public health official in Philadelphia, let's say. What the heck can I do to deal with these plumes of smoke, especially the particulates in them from these zombie fires from hundreds of miles away, even more than 1000 miles away?

LOUCHOUARN: Well, that's a super good question. Well, there are a couple of things that we can do, but were you and I be you know, public health officials in Philadelphia, I think that the most important thing is good information to the citizenry on what that means in terms of potential impact to individuals that are most at risk, and having a clear communication accessible to all. Not everybody has access to information, so making sure that you know people have the possibility of understanding what's happening, opening shelters to offer protection, air quality protection, that is, you know, where air is filtered. In the same way that we start thinking of shelters post-hurricanes or any other type of hazards, we have to start thinking of those as very large-scale hazards that affect thousands, if not millions, of individuals. Then the second piece that has started to happen in 2023 is starting to understand that although these fires are remote, as a matter of fact, the fires that affect our regions or in another country, is understanding that, if not a responsibility, but we have a certain potential commitment to deal with those and abate those fires. So, sending resources, machinery, firemen, firewomen, individuals who are supporting the fight against these fires, and understanding that because this is affecting our population, we may be part of the solution, right? And so now more and more, we're starting to see these compacts of firefighter support, even if they're remote in other regions.

CURWOOD: So you're a scientist, and scientists, of course, often are involved in public policy discussions, sometimes with comfort, sometimes without comfort. In this case, as a scientist and as a human here, what gives you hope, understanding what's going on with these zombie fires?

LOUCHOUARN: Oh, well, I might be biased in the sense that I always have hope, and I have an incredible faith in the human creativity and possibilities. So, I think that one of the things that's important is for us scientists to communicate more clearly of, A) What is it we're observing? How much do we know? What remains to know?—This is why I said I have to be really careful, because there are certain things we still don't know about—These zombie fires exist, but is there a trend in increasing, I don't know. What do we see in the future and communicate in the more accessible way so a lot of people understand, particularly, and your question to being a public official, public health official, is really important. Then, what can we do? What are the mitigation factors that we can put into place? And it could be that we can't avoid a catastrophe, but we can mitigate it and we can remediate it, and that's really important to understand that on there are different groups of humans that are impacted in different ways, both of their health, in terms of access to resources, and how they actually, where they live. So, we have to start understanding that we have a responsibility to all, and that's where I stop being a scientist and more of a human and trying to understand, how does my work and my understanding plays out in public environment and public health decisions?

O’NEILL: That’s Patrick Louchouarn, Professor of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University, speaking with Living on Earth’s Steve Curwood.

Related links:
- Popular Mechanics |"Hot New Environmental Threat: Zombie Fires That Come Back to Life"
- BBC | "What Are Zombie Fires?"
- Learn more about Dr. Patrick Louchouarn
- Read Dr. Louchouarn’s article on zombie fires in “The Conversation”

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[MUSIC: The Cranberries, “Zombie” on No Need To Argue (The Complete Sessions 1994-1995), The Island Def Jam Music Group]

O’NEILL: Living on Earth is produced by the World Media Foundation. Our crew includes Naomi Arenberg, Paloma Beltran, Jenni Doering, Daniela Faria, Swayam Gagneja, Mark Kausch, Mark Seth Lender, Don Lyman, Ashanti Mclean, Nana Mohammed, Sophia Pandelidis, Frankie Pelletier, Jake Rego, Andrew Skerritt, Bella Smith, Melba Torres, and El Wilson. Tom Tiger engineered our show. Alison Lirish Dean composed our themes. You can hear us anytime at loe.org, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Music, and like us please, on our Facebook page, Living on Earth. Find us on Instagram at living on earth radio, and we always welcome your feedback at comments at loe.org. Steve Curwood is our Executive Producer. I’m Aynsley O’Neill. Thanks for listening!

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