Healing from the October Fires: Ecological and Firewise Perspectives Presentation with Maya Khosla

Join us for this multifaceted program of poetry, film, and scientific perspectives on fire ecology and being firewise. Maya Khosla and community members (pre-arranged), including high school students, will share their writings about the October 2017 Sonoma County fires. This shared work will be followed by a brief discussion and a slideshow of Pepperwood Preserve landscapes that are rapidly recovering from the recent fires. We will then screen two of Maya’s short films and follow-up each with a Q&A. The first film is Firewise: The Scientists Speak, a 6-minute film that weaves personal accounts and findings of leading fire scientists and firefighters who work to provide fire-safe communities while understanding the high value of backcountry wildfire. The second film is Searching for the Gold Spot: The Wild after Wildfire (30 minutes) a film about the rapid and amazing comeback of the wild in forests after wildfire. The story follows teams of scientists and firefighters through the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades Mountains and beyond, and shows hundreds of living, breathing reasons why our publicly owned forests need to be saved from large-scale logging projects. The teams find rare black-backed woodpeckers, goshawks, spotted owls, their young, and many other animals using post-fire forests – a surprise and a new sense of hope for all. Hot drinks and snacks will be provided at this event.

If you would like to share your poem about the October fires (reading time no more than 2 minutes), please contact Anita. Limited spots are available for the poetry sharing, and you would not have to pay for the event, but pre-registration through Anita is required.

Formerly a biology instructor at Imperial Valley College, Maya Khosla has a wide variety of field experience ranging from turtle habitat restoration in India to riparian and salmonid habitat restoration in Marin, Sonoma, and Monterey Counties. She has also been on research teams evaluating the impacts of wildfire across the Sierra Nevada and Cascades Mountains – both the beneficial impacts as well as the home protection measures to be used. Maya’s screenwriting efforts include poetic narratives for “Shifting Undercurrents” and “Village of Dust, City of Water,” award-winning documentary films. She is author of “Web of Water: Life in Redwood Creek” (non-fiction) and “Keel Bone” (poems from Bear Star, Dorothy Brunsman Award), essays including “Heating Up: Spotted Owls and Wildfire” featured in Boom (UC Press), “Tapping the Fire, Turning the Steam: Securing the Future with Geothermal Energy” (also a film project), and “Notes from the Field.” Recently, Maya has been interviewing and filming firefighters as they discuss the dangers and offer solutions for building at the urban/wildlife interface. Check out the Trailer for her film Searching for the Gold Spot, an October KRCB TV Sonoma fire update (Maya’s work is shown as part of the fire update), and her recent article about the fires in Earth Island Journal.

Cost is $6 – 20 (sliding scale, non-refundable)