Jose Luis Duce Aragüés: The Critical Importance of Understanding Other Cultures in the Role of Fire Abroad

[This interview originally appeared in the 2024 Fall Issue of Two More Chains.]

Jose Luis Duce Aragüés is a Prescribed Fire Training Specialist for the Watershed Research and Training Center based in Hayfork, California. Originally from Spain, Jose brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the center’s work, having burned with communities in many countries around the world.

In this interview with Erik Apland, the Field Operations Specialist for the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, Jose speaks candidly about the exportation of fire suppression practices all over the world, the critical importance of understanding other cultures to understand the role of fire abroad, and how fire, ultimately, is all about people.   

Erik: Can you give us a quick background and talk about when you made your transition from fire suppression to prescribed fire?

Jose: Yes. I came from the suppression world. I feel so thankful for that. All my fire career, I owe so many things to so many people who I’ve worked with. I started in 1992 on a small handcrew in my hometown, Cogolludo, near Guadalajara in Spain. It’s a tiny town, with 400 people.

I was just doing summer seasons to get some experience and also to get some money so I could pay for my studies at the university. Those were my first years, working three to four months in the summers. Besides the handcrew, I also worked on an engine and on a helicopter crew. Next, I became a team leader on one of the helicopter crews and I started developing my career as a leader. 

In 2006, I was teaching English in Rivas, a town in Madrid, the capital city of the country, during the winter while doing fire suppression with BRIF [BRIF: Brigadas de Refuerzo en Incendios Forestales – Forest Fire Reinforcement Brigades] in the summer. Eventually, I decided to leave my teaching job and become engaged in fire for the entire year. I was invited to be part of a fire prevention team for Spain’s Ministry of Environment [EPRIF: Equipos de Prevencion Contra Incendios Forestales – Forest Fire Prevention Teams]. So I left my teaching job to take on this full-time fire prevention team position.

These fire prevention teams are small groups of four people who are sent to rural areas to do controlled burns. I was doing suppression in summer and controlled burns in the winter, as well as fire prevention work. And then in 2010, I did my first training course here in the States.

Erik: Which training course? 

Jose: At that time, I had no idea what I was doing, but I did the Prescribed Fire Implementation RX-301, and Prescribed Fire Plan Preparation RX-301/341.

Erik: Oh! Burn plans? Wow . . .

Jose: And then in 2010 I wanted to come here to burn at the PFTC [Prescribed Fire Training Center] in Florida. But there was a government shutdown. I already had my tickets and everything so I decided to come over here no matter what.

I decided I’d see some friends of mine in Texas and New Mexico. On a previous trip to the U.S., someone had given me a phone number and said: “If you want to burn, call this number.”

So, now I’m on my way driving from Florida to Texas where my friend lives. It’s a Friday at five minutes to 9 p.m. and I remember: “Oh, I forgot to call this person.”

I dial that number. This person answers and tells me: “Well, you’re lucky because I was just about to disconnect for the next week. I’m going to be on vacation.” Our conversation takes maybe a minute and a half. He asks: “Do you want to burn?” I say: “Yes.”

“Take the first flight on Monday from Dallas to Omaha,” he tells me. “You're going to land there. You’re going to meet someone. He’s going to recognize you; you're going to recognize him. And you can be there burning for him as long as you want.” 

So that’s what I did. And the next thing I know, I’m burning in Nebraska and Iowa for a week, chasing units.

That was the beginning of my relationship with Jeremy Bailey [The Nature Conservancy’s Fire Training and Network Coordinator]. That was the person on the phone. 

Erik: No way. Wow.

Jose: That’s when I started developing my prescribed fire career. And all those things that I had been reading about integrated fire management came true. I started to understand the ecological element of fire because I got in touch with The Nature Conservancy and different partners, different preserves and projects, fire projects, and the TREX [The Nature Conservancy’s Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges] program. So I had suppression, the technical element. Then the ecological element that I started developing here.

And then the cultural element, too. Because I started coming here to California for brief periods to several TREX events. Through those events in California, I became engaged with some indigenous tribes as well. And then in October of 2015, I was still working in Spain at the time, and I decided to leave my job there—without knowing where I was going next.

That’s when Jeremy called and asked me: “They’re developing a fire program in Indonesia. Do you want to go there?” The next thing I know, I’m in Indonesia developing a fire training program for 2,700 people on a seven-million acre property.

Erik: They have fire in Indonesia? Isn’t it tropical?

Jose: It is. 

Erik: But it burns?

Jose: It’s crazy. The first fire I saw there, I was watching a green wall of tall grass. This bright green grass—was on fire! I was like: “What’s happening here?” I was so mesmerized watching that green grass carrying fire—people had to start yelling at me: “Jose, Jose! We need to go! We need to go!” 

So I was in Indonesia from 2016 to 2019 training people for suppression and prescribed fire. 

In 2018, I met Andrea [Jose’s partner] in a Spanish TREX in New Mexico. She invited me to go to Ecuador because they practice traditional fire management in the high-altitude grasslands there. I said: “Sure. I want to go!”

Next, I was invited to do some training in Latin America. But, actually, I was so lucky to learn so much from the local people when I was in Chile, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras. Because of those relationships in those countries, I was able to learn about fire behavior and, most importantly, learn about the culture and social dynamics surrounding fire and landscape management. 

Finally, in 2021, Miller Bailey and Erin Banwell [Co-Directors of Fire Management at the Watershed Research and Training Center based in Hayfork, California], decided that Andrea and I would be good candidates to develop community-based fire capacity. They invited us to come to California. Since that time, we have been focused mostly here in California, as well as participating in prescribed fire training in other states and abroad.

Looking back, I feel so thankful to the many people, the many mentors, I have had all over the world. There are so many institutions, agencies and organizations doing amazing things in different countries, and different ecosystems. Everywhere I have been I have always found these incredible people doing incredible work. Today I get to work with these incredible people in the Watershed Research and Training Center and within the Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program in California’s Department of Conservation. 

Erik: What elements of U.S. fire practice do you think should be adopted in other countries?

Jose: The U.S. Forest Service has been doing an incredible job in many different areas in fire, but also in forestry. For example, starting 30 years ago, in countries like Spain and Latin America, thanks to the Forest Service, the BRIF system in Spain was started.

In 1991, Ricardo Vélez, then the Chief of Spain’s National Forest Fire Service, and some people from Spain came here to the United States and met with representatives from the U.S. Forest Service. Next, the U.S. Forest Service sent people from New Mexico to Spain to train the first three BRIFs.

These brigades were a mixture of hotshots and smokejumpers. But we are transported by helicopters, and we don't rappel.

Erik: In 2023, I met several BRIFs at a TREX event in Quincy, California. I’ll always remember one of them jumping off a picnic table to simulate how they heli-jump into fires in Spain—and then get blasted by rotor wash from their Bell 412s.

Jose: In my humble opinion, and from my knowledge, I think that the approach that was started in the last 20 years in Latin America is a “colonialism” approach. I call it the “neo-pyro-colonialism” approach, implemented by several fire agencies, with a sense of a certain hierarchical, paramilitary, suppression-based approach to fire.

For example, in Latin America and other countries, everybody wants to be in a picture with a U.S. Forest Service member. That is a double-edged sword. It can be great, because this and other agencies can add and are implementing incredible programs. But then, all of a sudden, you might think you’ve become elite and feel you have expertise. And you can use that expertise to develop local knowledge and capacity in the community—but that isn’t what always happens. 

Erik: So, in countries in Latin America there’s a prestige around the U.S. Forest Service?

Jose: Yes. Especially in some fire environments and in suppression-oriented organizations. If you go to Latin America, everybody thinks that the only agency that does fire in the United States is the U.S. Forest Service. And for them, the U.S. Forest Service is like a dream. But in Latin America there is also the example of community-based workforce development and strength. I think that this approach is very different from what has been the norm in the United States for decades. 

This is also happening in Spain. Spain has a huge suppression machine that has been very successful during the last two decades. We have more than 125 helicopters and aircraft in a country that is half the size of California. And we spend millions of Euros in suppression. But 70 to 75 percent of these monies are dedicated solely to aircraft.

The suppression machinery is so strong that it’s being exported to other countries, especially to Latin America. Now, everybody in Europe is focusing on how things are done in Spain and a little bit in Portugal. There is a point of view among some in fire organizations around Europe that fire has to be like it is in the South of Europe, and this is not necessarily the case. Plant communities are different, socio-economic systems are different, economies are different, and scales are different. 

I am feeling and learning more and more that everywhere you go—Indonesia, Latin American, Portugal, Spain, etcetera—“fire” is not the problem. This is a social problem: fire is a physical, natural process. That’s why I talk about this approach in Spain or the U.S. agencies. It’s an approach based in suppression that comes out of their particular context. Fire has very different realities everywhere, if that makes sense. This approach may be appropriate in some places and eco-societies, but it is not universally applicable across all landscapes and ecosystems.

Erik: If someone wanted to follow a path like yours, to see fire all over the world, what would you tell them? What mindset would you have them take?

Jose: The concept that always helped me and I think it is the most important one, is to focus on the human element—and what’s behind that. To me, the history of fire is related to the history of the people who practice and live around fire, and the “moradores/moradoras” [locals or longtime inhabitants]—the people who have been tending the land for ages.

So to learn more, what I have done is to learn about the needs of the country’s people, and why they use fire. What are the economics? What are the social impacts? What are the impacts regarding decisions about fire in that community? And what is the meaning of “safety” for someone who has been practicing fire?

I’m still surprised when I go to a community in Ecuador, or in Honduras, or in Guatemala and the community members there thank me, saying: “Wow, now I understand.” How can you tell me you understand something that you have been practicing for decades and generations, and feel thankful to me for that? But maybe they lost that link from previous generations and now they are recovering it? 

Of course, everything is different everywhere. We cannot assume things from one place we have been are the same somewhere else. So if I’m seeing something—a fire practice that works—what is the human element behind that? Does that make sense? 

Therefore, for someone here in the United States, when you look at Spain or Europe, for example Italy is very different from Portugal. And in Portugal—as well as all these various countries—there are different ecosystems, cultural relationships to fire, and social needs.

The same applies here in this country. In the Plumas National Forest in Northern California, the approach to fire is very different than in the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico.

So, to answer your question, I would tell people who wanted to follow a path like mine, who wanted to see fire all over the world, to always pay attention to these two key concepts: the human elements and the different realities. So many different realities.

That’s what I would say to anyone who wants to study fire or learn about fire. Actually, that’s another thing that I say a lot. I don’t know if it is “advice.” But people laugh because I say it so much, in all my trainings:

“It depends.”