Not long after arriving in Alaska, Jeff joined the Girdwood volunteer fire department, enlisted in firefighting courses, and soon became a full-time wildland firefighter with the State of Alaska. At the time, wildfires in Alaska rarely made headlines. But in the first few years of his career, things began to change. Jeff and his colleagues witnessed fires growing more destructive and more difficult to control, and in 2004, a series of nearly 1,000 wildfires burned close to 7 million acres—engulfing an area of land the size of Vermont, and marking the most destructive wildfire season in Alaska since records began.

“At the time, people called it a once-in-a-career fire season,” Jeff recalls. “But I’ve seen four more like it since.”

Since the start of recorded fire data, Alaskan wildfires have increased in frequency and severity. Today, large and destructive fires have become the norm, reshaping how Alaska must prepare for and respond to wildfires. Today, Alaska wildfires burn on average 1 million acres each year, making up over half of the U.S.’s annual wildfire carbon emissions. 

Jeff soon realized that combating increasingly severe fires required not just frontline firefighting, but systemic changes in policy, education, leadership and philosophy. He saw that the causes and impacts of wildfire are complex, which is why the work of firefighting begins long before the first spark and demands more than a reactive response.

Jeff also saw the vast network of feedback loops that stem from a single fire. Ecosystems that were once fire adapted are now slower to recover, reducing habitat for keystone species like salmon and moose. Continued forest and soil degradation removes insulation for permafrost, accelerating melt and jeopardizing the roughly 77 gigatons of carbon stored in Alaskan permafrost, which, if released, would have global impacts. Public health risks rise as well, because of particulate matter from fires linked to respiratory illness and the elevated risk of injury and mortality.

Thinking about wildfire impacts in such expansive ways is not the default in state agencies, which often focus on reactionary responses—too often reaching communities after the damage has been done.

Although preparing for disasters may not be natural, the foresight is worthwhile. According to a 2024 report by the Chamber of Commerce, every dollar spent on disaster preparedness saves $13 in mitigation costs.

Shifting wildfire strategy from reactive to proactive requires extensive knowledge – not just of the fires themselves – but of the systems charged with managing them. Jeff’s first-hand experience fighting wildfires, combined with his depth of knowledge and relationships across the state, allows him to lead Alaska Venture Fund’s Alaska Wildfire Resilience Initiative (AWRI) effectively. He brings this duality – micro-level operational experience and macro-level systems thinking – to all of AWRI’s work, from community trainings to policy advocacy. 

Jeff’s ability to think boldly and creatively is core to the AWRI team’s success.

What allows Jeff to navigate diverse environments is not just his breadth of experience, but his skills as a listener and convener. His years as a student and then instructor in the fire service shaped his passion for collaborative, non-hierarchical leadership and education, which he channels into all elements of his work. 

Lisa Amaniq Shield, Alaska Venture Fund’s Community Wildfire Resilience & Workforce Coordinator who has known Jeff for 13 years, says that Jeff’s simultaneous hunger for knowledge and willingness to learn from others is his best quality. 

“He is ravenous for information, and it informs everything that he does,” says Lisa. 

During one of their visits to a rural community, Jeff used a piece of wildfire jargon that was unknown to members of the community. Lisa noticed that Jeff’s use of the term seemed to confuse community members, and when she brought it up with him afterwards, Jeff was eager to learn more. 

“When we talked about it afterwards, he was genuinely interested in how he needed to change, asking, ‘what other words could I be using, and how would you explain this?’” says Lisa.”  

During their next community meeting when the same complicated topic came up, Jeff gave Lisa the space to explain it, recognizing that she would be better able to contextualize the concept, given her understanding of the community. 

“There are not a lot of people who are experts on something that are willing to pass that over to someone else,” says Lisa. “We [the Wildfire team] are truly like a puzzle. We all have our different pieces, and we come together to make this thing that is bigger than any of us as an individual. And Jeff really believes that, which is empowering for us too.”

Kenni echoed Lisa’s sentiment: “He’s like a magnet for pulling together people to tackle big complex problems. People listen to Jeff and he’s a phenomenal advocate for this work.”

After three decades of wildfire work, emergency preparedness and in higher education anyone could become burnt out, but for Jeff, his passion remains strong. He has ambitious goals – from protecting critical habitats to improving  firefighting infrastructure and reducing human-caused fires – but what motivates him most is the fragmentation he still sees in Alaska’s wildfire approach. Much of the knowledge needed to make communities safer already exists; it just needs to be shared and aligned. 

Jeff leads AVF’s Alaska Wildfire Resilience Initiative, where he is shaping a vision for wildfire resilience that bridges science, lived experience, and community knowledge to meet Alaska’s increased wildfire risk. You can find out more about Jeff here. 

Written by Maggie Bryan, Carbon and Climate Fellow
Photos courtesy of Zoé Styron, Kenni Psenak, Lisa Amaniq Shield, and BLM Alaska Fire Service
Published: November 2025