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I started working on a fire crew in my home province of Nova Scotia, where I became a pyromaniac as a kid after burning brush piles and spending weekends lighting campfires in the woods. This led to an interest in forestry, and I moved to Fredericton in 1998 to start the forestry degree program at the University of New Brunswick.
After a brief stint planting trees, I moved to Alberta in 2000 to start working on the newly established Provincial Helitack Support crews (otherwise known as PHS, HS, HSC, and a few other names over the years). I spent a few years switching between it and the rappel program, working as a member and sub-leader with both and learning the ropes (literally) of fire suppression.
Following my undergraduate degree I continued to enjoy the seasonal life while skiing, climbing, and traveling in the off-season. A desire to change from fire suppression led me to parks, first to Cypress Hills Provincial Park (an underappreciated gem) and then to Waterton Lakes National Park, both as a crew leader. Participating in the prescribed burn program of the National Parks gave me some great opportunities to learn about the complexities of implementing a burn and also to take some great photos!
A strong interest in community protection and the wildland urban interface led me to California for graduate school, where I studied and compared different fuel treatments (including the use of goats for another student’s study) in the WUI and had to learn to omit several ‘u’s while writing my reports. My thesis consists of comparing fuel treatment effects on both fire behaviour (intensity, spread rates, etc) and ecosystem processes (carbon storage / sequestration, air pollution removal) to establish a benefit / cost relationship.
Phone: (780) 865-6980
Eamil: Jonathan Large
Researcher - Jonathan Large 8/7/2009