We are all used to it by now. Hearing about wildfires around the area, as well as the trails of smoke coming into town.
Klamath Union senior Linnea Gebauer knew she had to do something. When it came to deciding what video to make for the C-SPAN Student CAM competition, Gebauer knew exactly what she wanted to film.
Wanting to raise awareness, Gebauer saw the destruction that was felt in and around her hometown and figured, why not make a video about wildfires.
Her video, named Fire Season, recently earned her a top 16 finish in the C-SPAN contest.
The idea to submit a video for the contest dated back to last year but she found out about the competition too late in order to put together a video.
“I had it in my mind throughout all of last year and was thinking about it,” Gebauer said.
The prompt was simple: “how does the federal government impact your life?”
By November of last year, she got to work. She began to view webinars and got knee deep into wildfires.
The biggest obstacle that came for Gebauer was finding sources. She reached out to countless people in the fire industry but did not get many responses.
Being under a time crunch, she managed to hear back from two people, former Herald and News reporter, Alex Schwartz, and William Kaage, Fire and Aviation Management Division Chief for the National Parks Service.
In her video, Gebauer reported and narrated the damage wildfires have caused locally and nationally but provided a solution to help maintain it as well.
“Living in this area, in the summer, we get a lot of smoke. Wildfires are constantly on my mind, it feels like,” Gebauer said. “It is something that is really important to me and the area I live in.”
Her focal point was on the three parts of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.
Throughout her reporting, she emphasized the way different areas can live with wildfires.
“Instead of suppressing all wildfire … live with it as a national process. I wanted to show the benefits of a healthy wildfire,” Gebauer said. “Fuel or shrubs, those build up. That is when you get unhealthy wildfires.”
Gebauer wanted to debunk the thought that wildfires, as a whole, are bad. She emphasized in her video, if you have a routine fire through the area, it can help keep forests healthy.
Seeing it first-hand
The Pelican senior recalled a moment two years ago when she helped out in a volunteer effort during the Almeda Fire.
Organized through Klamath Union’s DECA program, students took a bus to the Phoenix area, hoping to help out those impacted by the fire.
Though Gebauer was not with the actual burnt communities, she spent her time restoring the natural area.
The KU students helped in restoring the greenway, a natural area in Phoenix. Much of their time was spent picking up debris, trash and spread hay over the burnt areas.
“That was really powerful for me,” Gebauer said. “We used to go to Phoenix and play soccer against their team. When the fire destroyed a majority of the town, that was kind of different for me because it was so close to my hometown.”
Bootleg Fire
Wanting to get more b-roll, Gebauer figured she could visit the Bootleg Fire. She visited the area with her dad this past December.
“My dad and I drove up there and it was just the two of us. It was in December so there was snow everywhere but then all the trees were burnt, so it was just kind of a weird feeling to know that, at one point, that whole area had been burning,” she said, “It was sad too to see that huge amount of forest that was burnt.”
Response to Fire Season
A majority of her video was shot by herself, awkwardly trying to setup a camera to record herself.
Gebauer has come along way from initially not wanting to be a part of the KU Media Design program as a freshman to making a nationally recognized video.
“I would say this is the best video I have made,” Gebauer said. “There was one weekend where I was editing all, like straight through the weekend.”
“I think that is a big part of this program. We do want to win things, and we do, do things for ourselves but once you get to the advanced program, have the skills and know what you are doing, it is more about how can I use this in my community and use this outside myself.”
Vote now
On Wednesday, March 16 at 6 a.m., C-SPAN will announce the winners of the competition, which will include a grand prize of $5,000. Gebauer has an opportunity to win the Fan Favorite award, an additional $500 prize. Anyone can vote for her once a day until March 13.
Voting for the Fan Favorite award can be found at, https://studentcam2022.us.launchpad6.com/fanfavorite/entry/15.
“Even before the results came out for the top 16, I got a lot of feedback from people I didn’t know. This video spread far through the forest services and all these other agencies,” Gebauer said. “This is the first project I have done where I am getting feedback from people I don’t know all around the country that are responding to this. It is a really good feeling to know I am impacting people.”
Aguilar-FloresJ@kfalls.k12.or.us