As we watched smoke from the Alexander Mountain fire fill the skies last month, and remember other devastating wildfires in Colorado and New Mexico over the past years, it’s easy to see fire as only a destructive force. Wildfires are spreading faster, lasting longer, and burning hotter than ever before.

Within two weeks of having legally created a new 12,600 acre national Wildlife Refuge Suyapa - Luís Hernán Valladares Baca “Mero” on the edge of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, it was set ablaze. Today, some 5% of the 59,000 acre La Tigra National Park, in Tegucigalpa is on fire, and the capital is shrouded in smoke.

Every fire season is an existential crisis for our friends in the Aldea de Suyapa, Honduras. Since 1987, a volunteer group of community members have organized to protect their centuries-old communal forest from firewood poachers, land grabbers, and the expanding agricultural frontier.