Wildland fire science, translated for the crew.
On The Line is a Missoula-based interview show about the bodies, landscapes and leadership culture of wildland firefighting. Host Charlie Palmer brings in University of Montana scientists and career fire leaders, then keeps pressing for the plain-language takeaway a crew member could actually use.
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On The Line is a talk podcast about wildland firefighting that treats the firefighter as both research subject and working professional. Charlie Palmer hosts, usually from the Recording Center Studio in downtown Missoula, and he rarely has to look far for guests, since many are colleagues at the University of Montana. The result sounds less like a lecture than a working conversation with people who have spent decades studying fire crews, fire history or fire leadership. The physiology episodes are the most hands-on. Dr. Brent Ruby, director of the Montana Center for Work Physiology and Exercise Metabolism and the show's most frequent contributor, favors advice a crew can actually follow: trust appetite and thirst over spreadsheets, and treat sports drinks as useful but not constant. In Critical Training, Dr. Chuck Dumke and Katie Christison walk through blood markers of muscle damage that soared during the two weeks when crews reassemble, even though nobody missed a day of work. Christison is also the guest on Female Wildland Firefighters, explaining how menstrual-cycle phases may shape heat strain and fluid balance, and Palmer sketches a history running from 1915 photographs to the all-woman Red Star crew formed on the Lolo National Forest in 1971. Fire itself gets its turn. In Fire and a Changing Climate, fire ecologist Dr. Phil Higuera describes reading charcoal and pollen preserved in lake-bottom sediments to reconstruct fires reaching back thousands of years. Palmer recasts the ecology in crew terms, with forests giving way to shrub or grass becoming a changing fuel type. Higuera also points out that the large majority of western wildfires from 1999 to 2020 destroyed no structures. Leadership gets a two-part treatment. Leadership Alpha features Mike Degrosky, a fire service veteran of more than 40 years, whose short creed is to meet people where they are, lead with empathy and compassion, and remember that crew members are people rather than resources. He calls his criticism of the agencies tough love. Leadership Bravo brings in Mark Smith of Mission Centered Solutions, who recalls leadership courses winning over skeptical hotshot superintendents from 1999 onward and argues that admitting how dangerous the work is makes room for real talk about pay and professional status. Palmer's job is interpreter. He asks for the lay version of a finding, cues up a Thomas Dolby joke to welcome a scientist back, and speaks crew shorthand, from red cards and pack tests to keep one foot in the black. The jargon stays; the science gets explained. Titles from 2018 through 2020 show a wider spread: Sack Lunches, Ibuprofen, Running, Drones, Mountain Pine Beetle, The Other Half, Transitions, CISM and Post Traumatic Stress/Growth, plus a conversation with Senator Jon Tester about wildland fire funding. The Dr. Brent Ruby episode is a sensible entry point for practical nutrition and hydration questions, while Leadership Alpha and Leadership Bravo work best as a matched pair.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants the research behind wildland firefighting, from heat strain and muscle damage to fuel types and crew leadership, explained in working crew language rather than journal prose.
What sets it apart: It goes straight to the University of Montana researchers running studies on firefighter physiology and fire history, and Palmer consistently presses them for the plain take-home version, so original research arrives already translated for the people it describes.
A Podcast for today's Wildland Firefighters.
A 50-pound pack would like a word with your 10-pound training plan.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Mark Smith makes a practical case for leadership training that holds up after the course ends.
Leadership Bravo frames leadership training as something practiced until it holds, not something absorbed from a classroom alone. Mark Smith, co-managing partner for Mission Centered Solutions and a former United States Army member who began in 1979, argues that instruction has…
A grounded wildland fire leadership discussion about debriefing, mental health, and the decency behind effective leaders.
Leadership Alpha looks at wildland fire leadership through Charlie Palmer's conversation with Mike Degroski, a longtime fire-service leader and recently retired chief of the Fire Protection Bureau at Montana DNRC.
Lake sediments help reveal past wildfire, vegetation, and ecosystem change over time.
On The Line closes its season series on University of Montana research for today's wildland firefighters with Charlie Palmer in conversation with Dr. Phil Higuera, a professor of fire ecology.
A grounded physiology review of heat, hydration, and female wildland firefighters.
Female Wildland Firefighters brings a physically punishing public-safety job into close contact with heat, hydration, and menstrual-cycle physiology.
A research-grounded look at what two weeks of firefighter training can reveal about fitness markers before the season begins.
Critical training marks the roughly two-week stretch when firefighter crews come back together, complete pack testing and red-card requirements, and move into the training block that starts the season. On The Line approaches that window through a research lens with Dr.
Researchers, doctors and coaches, translated into everyday health stakes.
Real fasting stories, practical food peace.
Rules of thumb for modern wellness.
Root-cause health, without the hype.
Ancestral health, told through lived stories.
Root-cause nutrition answers, delivered without hedging.
On The Line's Leadership Bravo features host Charlie and Mark Smith, a former United States Army special-forces soldier and co-managing partner of Mission Centered Solutions, discussing leadership in high-risk wildland firefighting.
On The Line host Charlie Palmer interviews Mike Degroski, a retired Montana DNRC Fire Protection Bureau chief with more than 40 years in fire services and advanced leadership degrees.
A 2023 study discussed by Charlie Palmer and Dr.
["On The Line talks with Katie Christensen, a PhD student in integrative physiology and rehabilitation sciences at the University of Montana, about female wildland firefighters and a study done with 12 eumenorrheic women in Nomex gear inside a 95-degree heat chamber for three hours.", "Christensen says women make up about 10% to 12% of the wildland workforce, that women were helping fight fires in 1915 on the Mendocino National Forest in California, and that the Red Star crew on the Lolo National Forest formed in 1971 with Dolly Browder, Zona Lindemann, and Marsha Hogan.", "She also cites Alicia Young\u2019s 2021 University of Arizona work, which reported 22% miscarriages among pregnancies in women firefighter subjects and noted that firefighter research has been restricted primarily to male firefighters.", "Her results showed higher luteal-phase baseline temperature, higher aldosterone, and greater fluid retention after prolonged heat exercise, which points to different hydration and heat-strain considerations across the menstrual cycle."]
On The Line's "Critical Training" follows Dr.
Dr.
On The Line's season-three finale examines Patty O'Brien's survey of 2,625 current and former wildland firefighters on type D personality, depression, and cardiovascular health risks.
On The Line examines post-traumatic stress among wildland firefighters, including a reported 14 percent prevalence rate—about four times the general-population rate—and the effects of repeated critical-incident exposure.
On The Line interviews Inverse reporter Alexandra Petillo about her seven-month investigation, “Wildland Firefighters Are Burning Out.” Petillo describes recurring stressors including calls involving children, injuries or deaths of colleagues, fire-season pressure, and an off-season delayed reaction.
On The Line examines ibuprofen’s risks for wildland firefighters through sports-medicine physician Robert Amrine and gastroenterologist Eric Stone.
On The Line: Athletic Training features Valerie Moody of the University of Montana and Bella Callas discussing injury prevention for wildland firefighters.
On The Line host Charlie Palmer interviews University of Montana forest entomologist Diana Six about Dendroctonus ponderosi, a grain-of-rice insect linked to tens of millions of dead trees and an outbreak lasting more than 20 years.
On The Line's "Sack Lunches" examines how wildland firefighters' fire-camp food shifted from large noon meals toward portable shift provisions.
On The Line examines drones in wildland firefighting with Carl Seilstad of the University of Montana's National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis and Tim Walsh, a former smokejumper and image analyst.
On The Line host Charlie Palmer asks Dr.
On The Line host Charlie Palmer interviews Toby Kearns and Corey Wolferman about marriage, parenting, and household responsibility during wildland fire seasons.
Charlie Palmer, Mitch Kearns, and Keith “Skid” Wolferman examine career, family, and leadership transitions in wildland fire.
On The Line’s season-two finale examines critical incident stress management for wildland firefighters with battalion chief Asad Rahman and apprenticeship-program director Heath Cota.
On The Line's "Jose's Bag 2.0" uses coffee, Copenhagen, vitamin C, and coconut oil to examine caffeine, nicotine, antioxidants, and ketogenic diets among wildland firefighters.
On The Line host Charlie interviews University of Montana professors Lloyd Queen and Carl Seilstad about the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis and modern wildland-fire management.
On The Line host Charlie Palmer interviews Brian Sharkey and Brent Ruby about the research history behind wildland firefighter fitness standards.
On The Line: Nutrition 2.0 features Dr.
On The Line’s “Jose’s Bag” uses Jose Pena’s athletic-supplement history to examine nutrition choices for wildland firefighters with Chuck Dumpke of the University of Montana.
On The Line examines how heat, wood smoke, sleep, exercise, and other physiological factors affect wildland firefighter decision making.
On The Line's "Seasonal Alterations" features Charlie Palmer, Brent Ruby of the University of Montana, and Trey Coker of the University of Alaska Fairbanks examining how wildland firefighters change across a fire season.
This episode discusses the high suicide rate among wildland firefighters, focusing on the loss of smokejumper Ian Pahowski and the need to destigmatize mental health conversations.
An interview with veteran wildland firefighter Wayne Williams, discussing his 40+ year career from Cal Fire to smokejumping in Missoula.
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