Living With Fire: A Conversation with Jennifer Mueller of Ember Alliance
Anyone who’s learned to build a fire knows the magic and power it holds. Fire is entwined with the story of human life—and as the climate shifts, that story is changing. Fire brings up emotions in people—it can stoke fear and it’s often misunderstood. Helping communities and private landowners thrive with fire is the vision of The Ember Alliance. Through community wildfire planning services, professional fire training and prescribed burning, the organization is working to restore the relationship—often fraught, historically—between communities and fire on their land. We chatted with Executive Director Jennifer Mueller to better understand how we as funders can support the important work they’re doing. Here’s what we learned.
This work revolves around people—and we must care for them
Mueller has a background in prescribed burning in the Southeast U.S., but time spent in wilderness EMT classes made her realize she also loved education. Through a series of events, she found herself at the helm of The Ember Alliance with no formal business training. It’s been a steep learning curve, she says, but with the support of a phenomenal team. Through that experience, she’s learned that people are at the heart of the issue when it comes to living with wildfire—both the communities and the people in the fire workforce.
Photo Credit @The Ember Alliance
Mueller’s goal is to create a workforce that’s local, sustainable and proactive. The word “holistic” comes up: “It really does take into account everything from affordable housing, wage retirement, health insurance to what's your mental health?” Mueller says. “Do you have a home life? Do you enjoy the work that you're doing? How is it treating your body? All of those things that traditionally aren't part of fire management.”
While this aspect is slowly getting better, it’s still difficult for landowners to understand why, say, it can cost $10,000 to get someone from The Ember Alliance out to their property to burn for a day or two. It’s the experience, skilled labor, expensive equipment that must be maintained and mitigating risks. Communicating to landowners that this is an investment is important and Mueller says their partners are beginning to understand.
“It's not like I get a fat check at the end of the year,” she says. “We pushed that down to our employees and they got better benefits. We’re so close to getting everybody an affordable housing wage at entry level, which is unheard of in fire management.”
Big-time risk requires big-time support
Even with the best possible management practices, fire can still be unpredictable. When it comes to prescribed burns on private land, liability is a make-or-break issue.
“Effectively what that means for us as an organization is our insurance is on the line,” Mueller says.
It’s a complicated issue, but in Colorado, the system doesn’t support the “burn boss,” or the person who has legal responsibility for the burn.
“Whenever you burn, any partner that shows up, their insurance is on the chopping block. If something goes wrong—and we don't expect that something will go wrong, we prepare for risk, anticipate it and we have all our mitigations in place. We do a lot of training. Everyone who does this is a highly trained professional—but everybody that shows up, your insurance is on the chopping block.”
Because of insurance underwriting, it’s really difficult to get insurance for prescribed fire, Mueller explains.
“Even if you do everything right, the wind can shift unexpectedly or maybe the weather forecasters didn’t predict conditions correctly,” she says. “And if we lose our insurance, it's not just for prescribed implementation—it's also for us to be able to provide support to other organizations that are doing work.”
Photo Credit @The Ember Alliance
Mueller continues, “There are different layers of protection, but a couple million dollars is not much protection. One mistake could mean the end of The Ember Alliance.”
One possible solution is certified burner coverage, Mueller says it’s not used as much as it could be.
At the end of the day, Mueller says she’s a risk manager. “That really, truly is my job,” she says. “And I don't just mean organizationally. I mean for all of the people involved. Everybody needs to come home at the end of the day, safe sound in one piece.”
Sharing the risk: A claims fund and legal support
When it comes to prescribed burns, private landowners get nervous. Mueller says, “They know they're also partially liable if something goes wrong. A claims fund would be immensely helpful, and having some legal support.” States like California have recently implemented a Prescribed Fire Liability Claims Fund pilot. And Colorado established legislation for one, but it awaits meaningful funding.
Not many lawyers specialize in prescribed fire in the U.S., explains Mueller. To help set The Ember Alliance up for success, she says they’re working on a series of legal templates that they could use for different levels of participation in prescribed burns, including one for simple participant labor, for example.
But that’s just the low-hanging fruit, she says. Ideally they would love to build a collection of legal forms for various ways partners and landowners could share the risk. That would require a state-specific lawyer, but Mueller envisions having a lawyer who specializes in this work nationally draw up the templates which could then be run through by a local lawyer and even shared with other small organizations in need of legal assistance.
“I feel like there are smaller nonprofit organizations, in Colorado and nationwide, that are sticking their necks out there, and they might not really know what they're signing up for,” Mueller says. “Most people that do this kind of work don't have a business background… It's like you're an operational person and now you're involved with contracts and litigation and stuff like that, and there's really not a lot of training in that. You don't go to a burn boss legal class. That's not a thing.”
Good fire needs good systems for implementation.
Photo Credit @The Ember Alliance
Communication and cooperation make a big difference
“I think most folks understand that fire can be good when applied in a methodical and planned way,” Mueller says. It needs to be a collective movement, with engaged people, where grassroots communication goes a long way. Another powerful tool The Ember Alliance received is funding to start pile burn collectives, allowing communities to burn together to save labor and money.
“We need more communication about the importance of fire and the tools in your toolbox,” Mueller says. “This is a great way to mitigate your risk as a landowner, and we're here to support you in that process.”
Mighty Arrow’s role: Supporting research, networks and workforce
With fire season in full force, this is a good time to examine how we too can most directly support the people doing this crucial work. Jennifer Mueller of The Ember Alliance was one of many Mighty Partners who shared their insights with us for our Mighty Partner Report.
With increasing frequency and risk of wildfires across the West, we must learn to adapt and live with fire in new ways. Many of our Mighty Partners are creating solutions for both humans and the environment, and we’re constantly looking for how we can better support them.
What are the most urgent issues?
How can this critical work be done most efficiently and sustainably?
How can we better care for the people doing this work?
Living with wildfire is a complex task connecting private landowners, public lands, policy, the insurance industry and many other groups working on mitigation and restoration. Mighty Arrow works on wildfire resilience in three different ways: supporting research, helping to build networks and developing a sustainable workforce.
In addition to The Ember Alliance, we support partners like Taxpayers for Common Sense and Headwaters Economics as they research and outline the smartest paths forward. A watchdog for financial waste in government spending, Taxpayers for Common Sense focuses on the impacts on environmental factors. We funded their research on wildfire spending in California in 2024, and their data has shown again and again that it’s more fiscally responsible to invest in fuel reduction efforts and community preparedness than it is to pay for recovery after a fire sweeps through a community. Stay tuned for a deeper report from them diving into the state of the home insurance industry relating to wildfires and other disasters.
Similarly, Headwaters Economics focuses on funding and fiscal responsibility relating to our communities and lands in the West. They recently released work on wildfire-resistant building codes in Colorado, and how their benefits can be applied in other states.
Network building is another way we look to create more wildfire-resilient communities. Whatever the federal funding landscape may look like, our communities need solutions they can own, staff and fund at the local level. This requires partnership amongst neighbors, between property owners and their utility companies, across coalitions of nonprofits and agencies, and with support from local elected and creative financing vehicles. Philanthropy can play a critical role in boosting pockets of regional momentum, catalyzing the human and social capital that inspires future funding to flow.
The Colorado Forest Collaborative Network (CFCN) is an exciting example, connecting the small regionally based organizations that touch forest health and wildfire resiliency across Colorado. Organizations across the state’s more populous Front Range have more access to resources than the small communities throughout the mountains and West Slope. But the CFCN helps connect leaders in those smaller communities, giving them a community of practice to tap into, and helping them collectively elevate their otherwise smaller voices to the state's Forest Health Council where future policies related to wildfire get developed for Colorado.
Other regional partners, such as Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed and the West Region Wildfire Council, are key entities that help private landowners tap into local networks of agencies and funding sources for risk mitigation solutions.
Building a sustainable wildfire workforce is the third key element we support, working with partners like Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance (TERA) as they aim to restore the relationship between communities and fire on the landscape and revitalize ecology, economy and culture through Indigenous-led stewardship.
Lindsay Dailey, the Executive Director of TERA shared some potent words with us in a conversation a few seasons back, “Land is such a powerful unifier. So many of us have deep, deep love for the places that we call home—how can we catalyze that love of home and all the critters that we share at home with to really envision new ways of working together?”
Good fire needs good people. The least we can do as funders is figure out how to take care of the people doing this work.
We’re in a defining moment—a moment where we can choose to be overwhelmed, disconnected and discouraged, or where we can choose to be positive, embrace change and lift up the work of others seeking a better future together. We’re proud to support the work of the people and organizations out changing this world for the better—for all of us. Some may be small, some large. All are mighty. Each month, we’ll be highlighting one of our Mighty Partners and we encourage you to get to know them, support them, and share their work with your friends, families and colleagues. Let’s get to work.