The Show for Aug. 28, 2026: Friday NewsCap, studying wildfires through soil moisture and more

There’s another lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s attempt to reduce voters’ ability to cast their ballots by mail. Our Friday NewsCap panelists analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, Arizona scientists are working on new ways to gauge wildfire risks.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona.bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, and welcome to The Show. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, scientists are working on new ways to gauge wildfire risks. And the effort to get more women into skilled trades.

But first, it’s time for the Friday NewsCap and some voices from the news this week.

KRIS MAYES: This effort by the United States Postal Service and the federal government right now is a naked attempt to inject chaos and doubt into our election system right before voting starts.

ANDY BIGGS: I was not surprised at all. I also was not surprised by the timing of it. So you have a Democrat AG investigating and then making a ruling for a Democrat governor.

KATIE HOBBS: He called for pardoning of the Jan. 6 defendants, and called them J6 political prisoners.

VERLON JOSE: Our Tohono O’odham police, our rangers, have been stopping contractors. If they didn’t have the necessary permits, they were letting them know, “You are trespassing. Please leave the Nation.”

ADELITA GRIJALVA: I believe ICE should be abolished. There is no reform for a system that is completely fundamentally corrupt. There is a failure, systemic failure, and it needs systemic change.

DANIEL BUTIEREZ: I believe if we want to make changes, we don’t go over and attack ICE, we don’t protest ICE. We go to Washington, and we rewrite the laws to improve it.

MARK BRODIE: And joining me to talk about more confusion related to mail-in voting, a handful of new polls in Arizona and more are Marcus Dell’Artino of First Strategic. Marcus, good morning.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: And Jason Barraza of Veridus. Jason, good morning to you.

JASON BARRAZA: Good morning to you.

MARK BRODIE: So Jason, let me start with you. A lot of news coming about President Trump’s executive order, which, long story short, would in all likelihood result in fewer people being allowed to vote by mail. The Supreme Court issued what was described as a procedural ruling which kind of allowed the executive order to go forward. There’s another ruling, I think just this morning, blocking it at some point. Kris Mayes, Arizona’s attorney general, part of the effort, the lawsuit that resulted in this morning’s blocking.

Almost regardless of what actually happens, what do you think the impacts of all of this back and forth, all the discussion about whether we’ll be allowed to vote by mail will have in Arizona, where the vast majority of voters vote that way?

JASON BARRAZA: Vast majority vote that way. It’s a tool that we utilize here in this state and that’s utilized across the country to allow people to cast their vote, to have their voice be heard.

Is it going to have an impact? Well, we’re on again, we’re off again. We’re going to allow the Postal Service to exercise its will within our voting system, we’re not going to do that. It causes confusion amongst the voting population, amongst the various states that are going to have to abide by this.

So we’re not in the best situation for right now as far as having clarity about how our system is going to work.

MARK BRODIE: Marcus, is there a danger for President Trump in terms of Republican turnout when you’re — I mean, we saw what happened in 2020 when he encouraged people not to vote by mail. … I mean, both parties obviously would be affected, but is there maybe a particular problem for Republicans here?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Yeah, I mean, I almost answered yes as soon as you said, “Marcus.” I am not on board with this strategy, and I’ll tell you, I’ve been doing campaigns in Arizona for close to 30 years, and I will tell you, Republicans have always dominated early voting, OK? They essentially invented the system back when Forbes was running in a presidential primary, if anybody remembers that, and were able to hone that skill to their benefit. And so from that standpoint alone, I think that it’s a bad idea to limit early voting.

However, if you want to take it one step further, for those folks that have somebody in assisted living centers, I would tell you that it is probably an 85–90% Republican base in an assisted living center, right? These folks are older, and those demographics tend to go Republican. I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut them out of being able to vote.

And you just expand out from there upon that older demographic. So to be honest with you, I just love sitting at my kitchen table and being able to go through the ballot book and read the ballot propositions and take my sweet time doing it. But we’ll have to see how this one rolls.

MARK BRODIE: The people who would be behind you in line also appreciate that, especially with the number of ballot measures we’ve had on the ballot the last number of years.

Jason, do you see this becoming a campaign issue? Like, do you see, for example, Democrats saying, “Hey, look, Republicans are trying to take away your right to vote by mail?”

JASON BARRAZA: It’s already a campaign issue. I think that the voting public has ranked the protection of our democracy pretty high on their interests across the board, and this is at the heart of it — exercising your right to vote.

We’ve got a system that, as Marcus pointed out, has been utilized by the Republican Party incredibly effectively, especially here in Arizona, and now you’re calling that into question. We’re going to be better served allowing people to exercise their voice and vote in our elections.

MARK BRODIE: Marcus, you were nodding your head as Jason said this would become an issue. You agree with that?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I think it already has, yeah. Kris Mayes held a press conference, was that yesterday or the day before?

MARK BRODIE: I think it was yesterday.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Yeah, about this issue, and I fully expect her to keep beating that drum and keep that message point alive.

MARK BRODIE: Is that an effective talking point, do you think?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I think so. Look, you’re running for attorney general, for God’s sake, you’ve got plenty to talk about. Fentanyl, the list goes on and on and on.

But I think it will be one thing to, you know, voters are concerned about it. Will they have to go to their polling place? And they’ll have to go find their polling place, because it’s probably not where they think it is, instead of getting that ballot in the mail. It’s concerning to them.

MARK BRODIE: All right, so one of the things that Kris Mayes I’m assuming would rather not talk about on the campaign trail is her investigation into the governor and Sunshine Residential. This was an alleged pay-to-play scheme. We heard at the top of the show Andy Biggs saying he’s not surprised that this was the outcome. There is, of course, another investigation still ongoing with the Auditor General’s Office with the help of the Maricopa County Attorney.

Jason, do you see this as continuing to — I mean, obviously Andy Biggs is looking to make this a campaign issue. Is this one that you think will stick?

JASON BARRAZA: I don’t think it will stick, because you have to look at the historical context. If you’ve read the findings that Attorney General Mayes put forward, it makes perfect sense on her position on this. One, this practice has happened throughout our history. Previous administrations have been called into question, and the same result has occurred: that there was no finding of wrongdoing.

When you’re dealing with an individual’s freedom of speech, which is in this context materializes in a political contribution, people have the freedom to make those contributions. And as long as there isn’t that evidence of quit pro quo, meaning, “I’m going to do this if you give me that,” as long as there’s no evidence of that, there is no wrongdoing.

And the attorney general said — she’s interviewed tons of people, went through the records and found no evidence of any of that quid pro quo. But to your point, of course this is going to be a campaign issue. The other side desperately wants this to stick and to be a reason for voters not to support both the governor and probably Attorney General Mayes. So it’s going to be out there, it’s going to be talked about. I don’t think it’s going to be something that’s going to change people’s opinion.

MARK BRODIE: When you talk about the investigators interviewed lots and lots of people, notably, they did not have a chance to interview Gov. Hobbs herself. Is that a bad look for the governor, do you think?

JASON BARRAZA: Well, the governor provided her statements to that, so she was able to share her side of the story, and the attorney general took it for what it’s worth. Whether that was done in person or through a written communication, it’s the same answer.

MARK BRODIE: Marcus, do you see this becoming an effective messaging point for the Biggs campaign?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I think it would. I mean, here’s the art of the deal, right? And this is going to sound terrible, but the facts don’t matter, right? It’s the allegation that matters.

And the allegation probably would work if there was some money behind it, right? It’s not enough to get a couple sentences in the newspaper and maybe a one-night, three-minute story. You’ve got to put an advertising campaign against that and message it.

And that is not happening. I’m not seeing a whole lot of Republican advertisements on TV, frankly anywhere. And so that is concerning for the whole Republican ticket at this point.

MARK BRODIE: Why do you think that is?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I have always thought that Turning Point was going to ratchet up here early on, wanting to get these Republican candidates defined before the Democrats could define them, which has been the Democrats’ strategy for every successful Democratic campaign in Arizona for God knows how many years now.

So there’s no secret, right? But that money somehow has not materialized, and I am in the dark as to why.

MARK BRODIE: It is interesting, especially because the Republicans, at least running statewide, generally had competitive primaries, whereas the Democrats didn’t. So you would think if you’re trying to fund Republican candidates, like, there was some nastiness in some of those primary campaigns, none of it on the Democratic side because there were no primaries.

You’d think that as soon as you turn the page from the primary and work on the general, that’s the time to start doing that, right?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Yeah, I think that the primaries did cause a lot more damage from a fundraising standpoint than people assumed. Republicans in the past have been successful when the field’s been cleared and they were saving all that money for the general election, and that wasn’t the case.

And also, it’s a defensive battlefield, right? The maps got a lot bigger for Republicans, and they got to defend in places that they haven’t had to traditionally defend in. And so the money gets a little more scarce, especially nationally.

MARK BRODIE: Well, assuming the money comes at some point, I mean, do you think this is the kind of issue that would animate voters to get to the polls? Like, alleged pay-to-play schemes, alleged quid pro quo, governor not sitting for an interview — is that the kind of thing, if there is money to advertise, do voters care?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I don’t think it changes your mind whether you’re going to vote. In every poll we’ve seen, affordability is at the top of the ticket. That’s what’s motivating people to go to the polls, right? Inflation, the cost of beef, your grocery bill, your gas — that’s the true driver of what’s going to get people actually to vote. But would it make a difference to somebody who’s truly up in the air? There’s a possibility.

MARK BRODIE: Jason, I’m curious if you’re seeing the same thing in terms of advertising and the money coming in for Republican candidates versus Democratic candidates, and if so, to what you attribute it.

JASON BARRAZA: I think the Republican candidates are at an incredible point right now, because they just finished their primaries, and so they had one messaging that they needed to put forward there, and most of them are now trying to pivot so that they can be more in the center, which recent history has taught us that’s kind of the place you need to be if you’re going to be successful here in Arizona.

And I think that one of the issues that they’re having is, what is that messaging that they need to bring forward for the middle? We saw Congressman Biggs make a pretty quick shift where he was trying to be a more moderate candidate, speak a little bit off of what your traditional Turning Point talking points would be.

And so I don’t think that they’ve really defined or figured out what that message is that they can bring forward that’s going to be a winning message.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I’ll tell you this because it’s somewhat interesting. There was an Atlantic article that came out this week, and everybody knows that the Trump fundraising machine is insane. I mean, they’re sitting on $400 million. And what’s traditionally happened is the funders, the donors, instead of giving to the National Republican Senatorial Committee or RNC or their state party, whatever that is, it’s all going to the MAGA PAC. I think that’s the formal name, actually.

And so they’re sitting on $400 million, and the question is, sitting around the table, what are we going to do? Like, how do we help out Biggs in Arizona? How do we help out Juan Ciscomani? How do we help out?

And the solution here that they devised, since they think that this campaign is largely going to be about [Trump], is to run an ad that is about him. And so I expect at some point here in Arizona, we’re going to see a campaign ad basically talking about why you need to elect Republicans because of — he’s going to point out his successes in this ad. And I will tell you, it’s a different strategy than I thought was coming.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, that is interesting. All right, well, we have to take a quick break. Marcus Dell’Artino, Jason Barraza, I’m Mark Brodie in Phoenix. The Friday NewsCap continues in just a moment.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It's the Friday NewsCap on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. My guests this week are Jason Barraza of Veridus and Marcus Dell’Artino of HighGround.

Guys, a bevy of polls this week. Maybe that’s not the right word, I don’t know. But it seems like there were some differences in the numbers, but not so much in what the numbers were saying in terms of at least the snapshot in time, a couple months out, who’s leading. There was a poll from High Ground that found Gov. Hobbs leading Andy Biggs by 15 points. There’s a GOP internal poll from Grayhouse that found Gov. Hobbs leading Congressman Biggs by four points. They all found basically the Democrats leading, at least in the top three races: governor, secretary of state, attorney general.

Marcus, what do we make of these at this moment in time?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: You know what’s funny? There were so many polls done on this race that we literally stopped doing them. We were about to go out and do a poll and said, “Forget about it.”

MARK BRODIE: Too many others.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: There’s way too much, there’s too many out there. So we’re going to switch.

But anyway, there’s not one poll out there that says Andy Biggs is leading. There’s plenty of polls that say Andy Biggs is close. And so what that tells me is this race is going to come down to turnout. I don’t think anybody thinks it’s going to be a 15-point blowout. I think everybody thinks it will still be a relatively close race, and in relatively close races, turnout matters.

The danger with this many polls this early is that it starts to set this messaging point that Hobbs has won reelection, and that has a tendency to depress Republican voters who are wondering if their vote even makes a difference.

MARK BRODIE: And maybe Republican donors, too?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: True. “Save my money for something that might win.” And that is a legit part of strategy, right? And so the Democrats are capitalizing on that, and Republicans would have done so as well, is to keep this flurry of polls going that shows that she’s winning, so it depresses Republican turnout.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah Jason, I guess there’s maybe a danger on both sides, right? In terms of, if you’re consistently shown down, as Marcus said, it could depress turnout, enthusiasm, money. But I would imagine there’s a concern also if you’re the Democrats and you’re consistently shown up, maybe you take the foot off the gas a little bit.

JASON BARRAZA: I don’t think that that point’s going to hit for maybe another month. If we see another round of polls come out where you have the governor still leading and our other statewide candidates still leading, I think then what’s going to start creeping in is, are we going to get apathy on the Democratic side because they feel like they’ve already won this election, and then our voters are going to stay at home and not show up on Election Day?

So it plays both ways here in that, yes, you might have one side say, “Well, what’s the point of me showing up? I’ve already lost.” But the other side is saying, “Well, what’s the point of me showing up? I’ve already won.”

So the political parties and the campaigns need to keep their base active and excited and ready to get out there to vote on Election Day.

MARK BRODIE: Do you have a sense of — I mean, this is a pretty wide gap in terms of, yes, obviously Gov. Hobbs is ahead in all these polls, and there were some last week as well, but the margin is — there’s a pretty wide disparity. Do you have a sense of where this race actually is right now?

JASON BARRAZA: I think that what you can take from the polls is that currently right now, the Democrats and Hobbs specifically are leading. They’re in the lead. Exactly how big that is, is up for question.

And I think we’re seeing the disparity — and I know this is something, Marcus, that you know quite a bit about — but the pollsters right now are trying to figure out who the electorate is going to be, and I think that that’s what’s feeding into the differences that we’re seeing in these polls, because the different pollsters are predicting that the people that show up in November are going to have different demographics.

And so as they try to refine that and decide, “OK, this is what we’re predicting that voting base is going to look like in November,” then the polls will get more and more accurate. But right now we’re still trying to figure that out.

MARK BRODIE: Marcus, do you buy into that?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s definitely — there’s a couple things that account for the differences in the polling, but the major one is your turnout model, meaning who’s showing up. And so as you can imagine, if you are guessing that independents are showing up at a higher number than another pollster, that probably benefits Hobbs, because in all the crosstabs, it shows that she’s winning independents.

So it’s little things like that that can make vast differences. But again, the art of being a pollster isn’t writing questions, the art of being a pollster is picking what the turnout model is going to be.

MARK BRODIE: One more quick question on the governor’s race polls. Significant that the governor, while she is leading, is not over 50%?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: You know, I think it shows a possibility. What I’m finding most interesting — and it’s repetitive from four years ago — but is what I call Republican guilt. And so you’ve got whoever those voters are that are Republicans that are voting for Hobbs instead of Biggs might get two races down, maybe three races. But if you’re paying attention, I mean, Kimberly Yee is actually winning in some of these polls in that superintendent race.

MARK BRODIE: Right. And she won four years ago, too.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Right. So it shows that these Republicans do have a tendency to come back home, and then what’s that mean for downballot once you get to your state legislative races? And I think Democrats are not taking their foot off the gas. I think they did years ago, but I think that they know they want to win this Legislature, and so they’re trying to keep their foot on the gas, and Republicans need to keep the Republicans coming home.

MARK BRODIE: So Marcus, one other thing that these polls found, the Noble Predictive Insights poll looked at President Trump’s approval rating. To the point you were making earlier about maybe we’re going to start seeing some ads making this race about him. This poll found that Trump’s approval rating in Arizona, 39%, the lowest that that poll has ever found. Does that bring that strategy into question?

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: I mean, for the optimistic side of that argument, what I would say is they are right. The White House is right that ultimately this will be largely about him and his policies. And I think it is somewhat of a valid argument to say, “If it’s about me, then why don’t I go out and talk about my good accomplishments and try and set the record straight?” True.

The downside of that is, of course, you’re reinforcing negative. And it also may not be the message point that is specific to that district or that state. And so that gets interesting. I’d also add that when Biden got tossed out, he was at about 11 points under, and that was what’s considered sort of a watershed moment. And so the danger here is looking at those numbers, is are we looking at potentially the reverse?

MARK BRODIE: Jason, if you’re a Democratic candidate, are you hoping that the White House will tie Republican candidates to President Trump?

JASON BARRAZA: Absolutely. I think that that’s the biggest strategy that the Democrats have right now, is to tie every candidate that they’re facing — no matter what level we’re talking about, what race we’re talking about — is to tie that candidate to Trump, because we’re kind of, in some ways, returning to normalcy in a midterm election where we’re now judging the White House, right? What has the White House done since their election, and is that going to create a backlash to that same party’s candidates downballot?

And I think we’re starting to see that happen. Trump has been incredibly skillful at kind of avoiding or rewriting how elections play out, but I think that we’re coming back home to, yeah, the midterm people are looking at what the White House has done, what the president has done, and they’re going to hold him accountable, and that’s going to do nothing but benefit Democrats.

MARK BRODIE: I mean, it’s kind of to your point, the midterms traditionally have sort of been a referendum on the current administration, maybe the current Congress. And in past years it’s maybe been a little bit less of that, but you’re saying it’s sort of reverting back to that.

JASON BARRAZA: I think Democrats are certainly hoping that we’re going to come back to that, because that’s just been the playbook, right? You knew that you were going to have a little bit of suppression if you had the White House, and hopefully that’s what plays out.

MARK BRODIE: Marcus, the Republican Attorneys General Association is putting Arizona in among 13 states where they’ll spend $7 million among those to boost Republican AG candidates. I guess maybe to the point you were making earlier about where’s some of the Republican money coming from, I would imagine this is at least somewhat good news for Warren Petersen.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Oh, absolutely. It’s great news for Warren Petersen. You know, he needs to get up on air, he needs to define himself. He was able to do that during the primary, so he has that advantage.

But last night, I will tell you, I saw my first attack ad on Warren Petersen from the Kris Mayes campaign, and it wasn’t on regular cable, it was like over the top. But it was an attack. And so Petersen needs to get up on air and define the message here quick, and I think this money helps.

The missing part of this is, now that the Republican Governors Association has done this, is the DGA going to come in?

MARK BRODIE: The Republican Attorneys General Association, yeah. The polls have generally shown the current attorney general, Kris Mayes, leading although the GOP internal one, it was a one-point lead for Mayes over Petersen.

So I guess that’s the question, right? Does the Democratic counterpart to the Republican Attorneys General Association also come in with some money here?

JASON BARRAZA: Certainly I would imagine that Mayes campaign is hoping that that’s the case. If you look at the bigger picture, the attorney general won her seat by literally a handful of votes.

MARK BRODIE: Fewer than 300.

JASON BARRAZA: So this race should be on everyone’s targets on both sides of the aisle, as either defending or trying to get this seat.

So as a candidate, any money’s good money. You’ve got to think President Petersen’s campaign is liking the attention that they’re getting nationally. I’ve got to think that the DAGA, the Democratic Attorneys General Association, is going to be there for Mayes as they evaluate their races across the country as well.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: What’s interesting about the AG’s race as opposed to these other races is — and this is a little inside baseball — but Republicans probably pick up like three points just because it’s a law and order position. Boots and hats, sheriffs, badges. You know, that favors a Republican message. And so Republicans got to make the most out of that 3% that they can at this point.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, interesting. All right, we’ll have to leave it there, guys. Marcus Dell’Artino, Jason Barraza, thanks to you both for the conversation. I really appreciate it.

MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Thank you.

JASON BARRAZA: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, a local startup hopes to bring more women into the skilled trades workforce. We’ll hear from its founder.

But first, a pilot project in the Tonto National Forest is studying a potential new way to gauge wildfire risks. It involves monitoring moisture levels in both soil and plants, both living and dead. If it goes well, the sensors could be used across different ecosystems around Arizona and beyond.

Salli Dymond is an associate professor in the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University and is working on the project. She joins me, and Salli, can you explain why this is an area that’s ripe for more study compared to what we know about it so far?

SALLI DYMOND: Yeah. So we know that fire needs some basic elements, right? Needs fuel, heat, oxygen. And in wildfire settings, this fuel is typically in the form of live plants that are close to the ground, as well as dead material like organic material that’s on the forest floor. And so the ability of that material to ignite and carry fire is a function of its moisture content.

Historically, it’s really hard to collect fuel moisture data. People have to go out into the forest and collect it. Usually it’s done every two weeks if we’re lucky. So in our new study, we’re using live and dead fuel moisture sensors coupled with soil moisture sensors, which gives us real-time data on the moisture content of the whole forest. So really what we’re hoping to do is better understand the drying of the plants, the whole moisture content of the system, and predict their potential to ignite and carry fire.

MARK BRODIE: So when you’re monitoring these, are you able to put a sensor, for example, in the soil or on a plant once and have it continually record data as opposed to having to continue to go to those locations?

SALLI DYMOND: Exactly. So not only are you getting — when you go out and collect the samples, you get essentially what we call a snapshot in time. So these sensors, which the live and dead fuel sensors go right on the plant or the woody material itself, the soil sensors go down in the ground, but we can collect data every 15 minutes, and the really cool thing is that we can access it remotely.

MARK BRODIE: Huh. I would imagine that’s really helpful when you’re trying to make decisions based on, for example, lightning strikes or, you know, any other number of factors that might lead to a wildfire.

SALLI DYMOND: Definitely. The nice thing, too, is you can put these in pretty remote locations. And so, you know, if you have a lightning strike nearby, you can look at that soil moisture data, the live or dead fuel moisture data, as well as the weather station data that we collect, and make really, really fine-point scale management decisions about what you’re going to do to fight that fire.

MARK BRODIE: So does that mean then that you can, for example, have particular neighborhoods or even blocks, you know, in the ready-set-go in terms of evacuation or know where to deploy particular firefighting resources?

SALLI DYMOND: That is the hope, is that we could really use this rather than issuing a really broad-scale, say a Red Flag warning or high or extreme fire danger. We could make it much more localized.

MARK BRODIE: Do you know like what level of moisture or lack of moisture is sort of the sweet spot for a fire igniting? Like do you — I guess I know you know how to use the data, but how specifically are you able to interpret that data?

SALLI DYMOND: Yeah. So the Forest Service now collects live fuel moisture, and so they have very particular thresholds based on that. The fuel moisture sensors and the soil moisture sensors go on a different scale, so we’re learning what that moisture content should be in the fuel moisture sensors. For soil moisture, we can certainly see when the soil is dry enough that we expect those plants to be stressed. So those are really well-known values, and we’ve certainly seen some of those values in the data this summer.

MARK BRODIE: How have you decided where to put these sensors to begin with?

SALLI DYMOND: Yeah. So we’ve been working very closely with the Tonto National Forest and then Salt River Project, who’s funding this research, to identify sites where they’re actually collecting those fuel moisture samples. So that allows us, at least every two weeks, to compare their data with our data, which is incredibly important anytime you’re putting out a new type of sensor. And then the Tonto National Forest has been incredibly helpful for helping us understand what sensors, what trees to instrument and where to put our sensors. So we’re really interested in what our information can give the forest managers.

MARK BRODIE: So what do you think is the ultimate potential of being able to do this? Like how far do you think this could go? How much benefit do you think it could offer?

SALLI DYMOND: Yeah, so the technology I’m very excited about, the potential and where we can see it go. So one, as I mentioned, we get this information real-time, so we can see what the system is doing. We can actually — we’ve had fire go over these sensors before, so in terms of understanding how to make decisions on the ground about wildfire or prescribed fire is really, really exciting.

Another thing, too, is just incorporating this information into our new fire danger rating system, so updating those with real-time data so we’re not relying on some of that coarse information about how live, dead fuels, what their moisture content is.

And then another really exciting thing is that when we think about the soil moisture going into the winter or the dormant season, we can better understand the status of those moisture contents and what we think the trees will be doing as essentially they green up. So are they going into that green-up as what we would call healthy or are they going to be vulnerable to any large droughts that we get during the growing season?

MARK BRODIE: I mean, it sounds like there might be some hydrological benefits here, too.

SALLI DYMOND: Ah, there are. And actually my background is forest hydrology. And so understanding that soil moisture component, that live fuel moisture component gives us so much information about the health of the forest, its vulnerability to fire, but also to pathogens and pests. But we can also get, with that belowground information, a better understanding of hydrology in terms of post-wildfire risk for flooding, any type of monsoon risk for flooding. So really all this information together is going to give us a lot that we can do in terms of protecting the surrounding forests and communities.

MARK BRODIE: Could it also potentially be helpful in terms of trying to prevent fires? Like if you know an area that, you know, the soil moisture is particularly low and there’s maybe you’re noticing more fuels there, more dead fuels there, that you can say, “"Hey, you know, somebody should go and clear that stuff out so there’s less fuel if a wildfire were to come”?

SALLI DYMOND: Oh, for sure. So, you know, one of the things we’ve talked about is spread and what happens when it’s igniting, but that ability to localize those decision-making tools and say, "OK, yeah, this forest is looking really stressed. Let me prioritize this for one of our thinning operations or one of our fuel treatments." And same with those dead fuels, like, "Oh yeah, these dead fuels are really, really dry. Let’s go out and clear them," is really — in an ideal world, we’re not getting large wildfires. And so the ability to manage before that happens is much better and more ideal than trying to fight these large fires.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Salli Dymond, an associate professor in Northern Arizona University’s School of Forestry. Salli, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

SALLI DYMOND: Thank you for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

Women make up less than 5% of the skilled trades workforce in the U.S., and our next guest this morning is hoping to change that. Kate Glantz is the co-founder of Move Over Bob, a local startup media brand and magazine that’s aimed at getting more women to join the trades, from plumbers to electricians to welders. And to do it, she gave it a try herself. She spoke more about it with my co-host, Lauren Gilger.

KATE GLANTZ: I had done well professionally, and I had a house and, you know, by societal standards, hey, you know, you made it, girl.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

KATE GLANTZ: And yet, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you I would need a wrench to fix a leaky faucet. I was fully out of the loop of Life Skills 101. And that as someone who is so, you know, investigative and just always trying new things, it really bothered me. So I just dove in and I registered for a one-semester pre-apprenticeship at Mesa Community College where I learned how to frame a house, picked up power tools and hand tools for the first time. And I loved it. And so part of it was just like, can I? ... But the second part of it was I had been seeing so much tangentially in the news and in sort of my special interests around women’s economic independence about the skilled trades being in demand, high-paying and us really being on the brink of a true workforce crisis. ... And that was super interesting.

LAUREN GILGER: So you thought about this from the beginning as an entrepreneur. But I love that you went and actually did it. What did it feel like to hold the power saw, you know? Like what — is it — does it feel great?

KATE GLANTZ: OMG, so powerful. You just let that — let it rip, and, you know, and then try using a band saw where you’re cutting metal, you feel like you’ve invented fire basically. Like it is ...

LAUREN GILGER: [LAUGHS]

KATE GLANTZ: ... it’s just real. It’s real and it’s tangible. And, you know, if you cut something, it’s in two pieces now. Like there’s — so much of my career had been in marketing and storytelling, and I love that and I bring that into everything I do as well. But I could never really tell what the outcome was. And it was so satisfying to have an outcome and to say, that is a roof truss that I built that will go to a house that someone will sleep under. You do not want to leave me unsupervised on a job site. I will be very clear about that. But it was incredibly empowering.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. This is an actual workforce problem, as you’re getting at, right? Like we need more workers in the “the trades,” right, in these kinds of jobs — electricians, plumbers, etc. We don’t have enough of them and very few women, right?

KATE GLANTZ: Absolutely. So less than 5% of tradespeople are women. Electricians, you mentioned, that’s about 2%. Plumbers, we’re looking at 1%. It is not a job a lot of young people or, full stop people, have much insight into or not — they’re not careers unless your dad did it. But if your dad wasn’t in that, or you know, your family wasn’t exposed to blue-collar work, then you probably have some ideas about it and some — probably some stigmas or misconceptions. And mainstream entertainment and media and school and cultural narratives don’t do much to change those perceptions.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. So you’re trying to change those perceptions right now with this project, Move Over Bob — which is a great name. But tell us how this came to be. Like you’re sort of taking these throughlines through your career, your marketing experience, your passion for women and their efficacy. I mean, what are you trying to do here with Move Over Bob?

KATE GLANTZ: Well, first, for all the Bobs out there, we love Bob. ..This movement is not possible without the 90-plus percent of men in these industries. But we are really trying to build a media brand that touches the next generation of girls, but also the women currently in the industry, the men, too, to really show what it looks like, feels like, is to be in this work.

And so that looks like a print magazine that we publish that goes to thousands of schools and classrooms and even union training centers or trade schools. This is in any nook and cranny where someone is either getting started or thinking about what comes next. It also comes to life through all of the interviews and even photo shoots that we’re doing with tradeswomen who —

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, they look pretty cool.

KATE GLANTZ: They are the coolest.

LAUREN GILGER: But you’ve also talked to, I understand, many middle schoolers, high schoolers. You’ve done assemblies at schools. I mean, what’s that like? What do you — what do you say? What do they ask you?

KATE GLANTZ: It is so much fun to see these girls a little timid, not really sure what to expect. They can’t really put their finger on what’s about to happen. And I like to bring tradeswomen early in their careers. She does not have media training. She is not an executive. She is wearing her Tims or, you know, her steel toes and her hi-vis and what — whatever she wants. And I moderate a panel, and I’m really vigilant about who’s looking snoozy in the audience, you know, how do we keep this like fresh and fast. And then the demo part is always the most fun.

So seeing the electricians or whoever, in this case, bend conduit, which is sort of bending pipe with your foot. Then we invite someone in the audience to come up and do it. And I will never forget a 14-year-old volunteered, tiny thing, and she did it pretty easily. And I held up the mic to her and said, “How did this go for you?” And she’s like, “Ugh, it was way easier than I expected.”

LAUREN GILGER: [LAUGHS]

KATE GLANTZ: And like just that attitude, I was like, “Yeah, girl.” And then all of the other hundreds of girls in the audience, in their mind now ... how they might ever think about conduit, if they do, is like, “Oh yeah, that didn’t seem that hard.”

... And so that is — it’s all these kind of micro-moments and opportunities to break their brains a little to be like, “This is a lot different than you think it is.”

I’ll never forget these two 19-year-old electricians, they're sisters, and they were speaking, they said, “Hey, like I am the rich friend.” Kind of reminds me of the Cher quote like, “I am the rich husband or the rich man."

And, you know, it’s true. And that’s the other part is like these women have salaries, they have special interests they can fund. One just — we interviewed, and she said, “I bought my first solo trip to Europe because I had never left the country, and I had the money and I bought it.” Another — many buy homes. I make it a point in any interview to say, “What do you buy with your money?”

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I want to ask you about something a little bit broader, I guess, because I think you and I as millennials probably grew up in this idea that you had to go to college, like college is the ultimate goal for everyone. We want everyone to get a liberal arts education and sort of be an educated human being in that way. I mean, do you think there’s something that they’re missing out on when they don’t do that?

KATE GLANTZ: I think higher education has a lot of different forms, and just because you’re not necessarily in a statistics class or an English literature class, it doesn’t mean you’re still not in school. I mean, for most trades, most require an apprenticeship with X number of hours on a job site, but also in a classroom. And so you might be learning different concepts, but they still are requiring discipline and critical thinking and all of the kind of things that college does to help someone grow up a bit. I think it’s sometimes less about what’s in the textbook and more about the structure and the dedication.

And so I mean, we’re asking 18-year-olds who are first-year apprentices, they have to wake up at 3 a.m. sometimes to be on a job site by 4:30. So I would say it’s harder to not go to college and not have, you know — I had a dorm, I had an RA making sure I wasn’t getting into too much trouble, I had a cafeteria in my dorm. Like I had everything. And not to say college was easy, there are all sorts of other challenges, but I think it takes a lot of internal strength and focus if you don’t pursue a four-year degree. But I wouldn’t say you’re not pursuing higher education by becoming a master of your craft in your trade.

LAUREN GILGER: Are there big barriers that women face in the trades? Discrimination, I mean, sexual harassment comes to mind. Are these things you try to prepare young women for?

KATE GLANTZ: Yes, and the answer is, unfortunately, that is pervasive in every environment. And there are some pretty horrific examples of late where women are being assaulted and killed on job sites.

And ... I think men, frankly, need to do a lot more to make spaces and job sites and culture inclusive and safe and respectful for everyone, and you don’t have to lose the humor. As an organization, I would say like the thing we can offer is to say, “You might be the only woman on a job site, but you’re not alone in this journey.”

LAUREN GILGER: It comes to mind for me that like the only way to start to shift that would be to have more women there, right?

KATE GLANTZ: That’s right. That’s right. And that is — and it’s, you know, I sort of say like we’re the top of the funnel. We’re getting them excited, we’re getting them in. I hope we’re helping with retention with the women who are in it, but it’s — I think a mission of a lifetime.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. We’ll leave it there. Kate Glantz, CEO of Move Over Bob, joining us. Kate, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for telling us your story here. Appreciate it.

KATE GLANTZ: Thank you for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Today, The Show contributor Robrt Pela looks back on a particular anniversary in his life and considers how things have changed.

ROBRT PELA: Fifty years ago today, I started high school. I didn’t want to go. The day before, August 27th, 1976, I’d gotten on the phone with my best friend to say goodbye forever. We both knew this was it. We’d heard all the stories about high school ruffians who lived to torment freshmen. We knew we’d never live beyond our first day of high school because school bullies always started with the little gay kids, which my best friend and I most decidedly were.

We’d gone all through grade school with the same 200 kids, and while they hadn’t liked us much, they’d gotten used to our sweater vests and our campy asides and our obsession with Petula Clark. But now we were going to a school with four times as many kids, most of whom we didn’t know.

I was supposed to go to a school closer to my home, but because I couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from the only other pansy I’d ever met before, I convinced my parents to get special permission for me to go to Apollo High School in Glendale. I told them it was because the school I was supposed to go to had a lot more kids who took drugs, to which my father replied, “Did you take a poll?”

My parents finally relented. It was something of a compromise. I’d tried to get them to let me stay home and get my high school diploma by way of a correspondence course. I could focus on my studies, I told them, maybe even graduate early. I left out the part about how scared I was of the mean-spirited teenage tyrants who were going to murder me because I was a homosexual. They weren’t having any of it, in large part because correspondence courses were expensive, and why waste money when your kid could do what every other kid was doing and go to public school for free?

My husband and I talk a lot about how we were both bullied in high school and how we learned to cope. In his case, by grabbing one of his bullies, slamming him against a locker and threatening to beat the crap out of him if he didn’t knock it off. And in my case, by joining the school newspaper and writing acerbic commentaries on why homecoming dances were an embarrassment to both our school and to all of mankind.

Usually, I’m willing to admit that even though I got pushed around by what felt like a lot of demon-possessed teenage monsters, I also made a lot of friends and eventually made peace with the idea that we live in a world where most people will hate you just for being who you are. That was a valuable lesson they weren’t teaching us in civics class.

Today, I might have had a better chance of getting my folks to agree to distance learning, especially since today they wouldn’t have had to pay for my homeschooling. As a 14-year-old who was just trying to stay alive, I wouldn’t have cared that I might have been contributing to a larger problem that was harming public schools everywhere.

We’ve all heard about how Arizona school districts are bracing for massive budget shortfalls this year. Millions of dollars gone from operating budgets that were already stretched pretty thin. The result is fewer teachers hired, more programs being cut, and more schools closing. That’s because distance learning is sharing the same local funding earmarked for public schools, thanks to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account, which lets parents pay for homeschooling with a voucher.

My husband is a schoolteacher, and we talk a lot about the newish no-bullying policies at most schools and how those are making schools safer for kids who are different. He recently mentioned that programs like the ones that promote zero tolerance for bullying are usually the first to get cut when school budgets are trimmed.

If you’d told me 50 years ago that my absence on campus might have led to my school closing, I would have applauded. Today, a half century later, I see the larger implications for students with bigger hurdles to leap over. And I don’t feel much like clapping about it.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Satheeva Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.