FAC Net: An Interview with Prescribed Fire Operations Specialist Kylie England

Editor’s note: This interview with Kylie England is the second in our “My Fire Journey” interview series, in which we feature conversations with fire practitioners from a variety of backgrounds. These conversations are meant to offer a window into how practitioners approach their work, draw inspiration, and keep going in the face of challenges and setbacks. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity, and represent the views and opinions of the interviewees. Read our first in the series, an interview with cultural fire practitioner Chanel Keller, here.

Kylie England is Prescribed Fire Operations Specialist with the Mt Adams Resource Stewards (MARS) and Mt Adams Prescribed Burn Association in Washington State. She works with local landowners, MARS staff, and neighboring fire agencies and partners to conduct prescribed fire activities, monitoring, and training in the area, as well as support fire suppression activities with the stewardship crew. Kylie began her fire journey in her home country of South Africa, where she worked as both a volunteer and professional wildland firefighter for several years before moving to the US fulltime in 2023. Outside of work, Kylie and her wife, Lacey, can be found adventuring with their dog, Lily, and enjoying the wonders of the Pacific Northwest. Photos credit to Kylie England unless otherwise noted.

Fire Networks Staff: How did you find out this field exists? How did you get into it?

Kylie England:

While living in Cape Town, South Africa, our peninsula experienced a devastating wildfire. At the time, I was working part-time at a school in the winters and part-time in a call center for the summer. I sat on my balcony every night of that fire watching the emergency lights and headlamps working in the mountains, wishing more than anything that I could be of help. At this point I was still working under the assumption that the folks in the big red fire trucks fought all fires. I didn’t know anything about wildland fire.

Some time after that I came across a flyer on my desk advertising a volunteer wildland firefighting organization in my home town. I immediately reached out and signed up. It was here, on my first day of training, that I knew this is something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was a volunteer firefighter for three seasons, and then in 2019 was headhunted to join the professional realm of wildland fire.