Trueheart Brown: The Fire Chief Who Gave Up His Western States Ticket

Trueheart Brown is the fire chief for the Coconino National Forest, a former hotshot, and the 2022 Black Canyon 100K champion who set a course record at the Sedona Canyons 125 this May.

In this conversation, Buzz and True get into the golden ticket he won at Black Canyon and the Pipeline Fire that kept him from ever starting Western States, what a hotshot crew teaches you about suffering that no ultra can, why a Ponderosa pine forest that used to burn every two to fifteen years is now carrying 150 years of missed fire, the reason your local prescribed burn deserves your support instead of your complaint, what PM 2.5 actually does to a runner's lungs, and why the whole vocabulary of "fighting" fire might be the wrong frame entirely.

This episode is brought to you in part by Arc'teryx and the new Sylan 2, built with a supercritical foam midsole and a forked carbon fiber plate for moving fast on technical terrain. Find it at an Arc'teryx store or at arcteryx.com.