Watch “Mitigating Wildfire Risk: One Hotshot’s Story,” a mini documentary by Mast Reforestation

Some experiences stay with you because of what you say. Others stay because of where you said it. For Firebreak Management founder Jessica Davison, being featured in Mast Reforestation’s Mitigating Wildfire Risk: One Hotshot’s Story was both. The film captures Jessica talking about her years as a hotshot, her work in wildfire mitigation, and the responsibility she feels toward forests, firefighters, homeowners, and the communities that live among the trees. It also captures the heat, the dust, the long days, the laughter, and the people who keep showing up for the land until the work is done.

The connection started on the Gentry ranch in Montana. Julian from Mast Reforestation found Firebreak as a Montana based contractor to help collect ponderosa pine cones during a rare masting year, four years after the 2021 wildfire that left its burn scar across the landscape. One small grove of ponderosa had been spared, and those trees were still producing seed. The burn scar was still visible, but the surviving trees were carrying the next generation inside their cones, which made the job a small, physical act of continuity.

The work was demanding. Jessica slept in her truck on site and worked through three days of temperatures near 100 degrees, climbing ponderosas with her bare hands until sap built up on her skin. At one point she ate homemade macaroni salad using two twigs off the ground as chopsticks. Velma and Rebecca, the mother and daughter who own the ranch, hosted a picnic for a crew made up of former hotshots, firefighters, loggers, and volunteers working toward wildfire careers. The interview was filmed on the third day, in the tall grass of Hidden Valley, inside that one spared grove.

One of the film’s most memorable moments comes when Jessica is asked whether it’s fair to say she was a hotshot. Her answer: “Yeah, it was pretty fun.” That lightness carries a lot underneath it. Hotshot crews are among the most highly trained and physically demanding teams in wildland firefighting, moving through smoke with saws and tools and making high consequence decisions in terrain where fire behavior can change within minutes. Jessica describes hotshots working about 1,000 hours of overtime, with two days off in between. She also talks about what firefighters see after the flames move through: burned homes, devastation, and the knowledge that people died. Over time, that becomes hard to hold. Then she names the realization that changed the direction of her work.

“If people just knew it doesn’t have to be this way. There’s a lot we can do before they ever start, and that is really life changing.”

That is the heart of Firebreak’s philosophy. Responsibility is more powerful than fear, and preparation is more constructive than helplessness. Jessica describes the work plainly: “We’re building firebreaks, looking to create a barrier between the fire and the human, the structure, whatever it may be.” That barrier isn’t a promise to stop fire completely. It’s meant to change fire behavior and lower intensity where it matters most.

“Good wildfire mitigation is actually just great forestry.”

Effective mitigation protects homes, supports long term forest health, and gives firefighters more options when things go wrong. As Jessica puts it, “By doing fuels reduction, you not only are able to help yourself and your neighbors, you’re helping thousands of wildland firefighters.” She has seen what the job costs them. “You should see them when they come home. They’re strong yet emaciated.” Good mitigation is one way to give something back to those crews and the families waiting for them.

We invite homeowners, landowners, HOAs, firefighters, and anyone who cares about Montana’s forests to watch the film. It brings Jessica’s past as a hotshot, her present work in forestry, and her respect for the crews who keep showing up into one place, and it shows that meaningful mitigation isn’t abstract. It’s physical, local, and rooted in care for place. As Jessica says:

“It’s just for the love of the land and their community every time.”

Watch “Mitigating Wildfire Risk: One Hotshot’s Story,” a mini documentary by Mast Reforestation