Kyle Trefny

Eugene, OR

Empowering youth and Indigenous leadership for a fire-resilient future.

Kyle is a researcher, organizer, wildland firefighter, and co-founder of FireGeneration Collaborative (FireGen). FireGen provides access to policy processes, participatory research, and community organizing, especially for young Indigenous practitioners and frontline fire workers.

Starting out with a GoFundMe and a petition, Kyle and his colleagues at FireGen have established their organization, led historic involvement for young fire workers and Indigenous practitioners in governance processes, and engaged hundreds of youth to elevate the next generation’s needs for how to live better with fire.

Kyle Trefny, 2025 Brower Youth Award Winner

More About Kyle

After wildfire smoke turned the San Francisco Bay Area sky an apocalyptic orange in 2020, Kyle Trefny decided to become a firefighter. He moved north to study at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and began wildland firefighting in the summers. He met peers from around the country working on fire issues, including firefighting, cultural burning, and fire research. Like him, these youth were passionate about creating a different societal relationship with fire, land, and each other.

In 2022, Trefny helped organize a meeting between young fire workers and the Chief of the US Forest Service to discuss young people’s stake in wildfire workforce and management policies. This led to the founding of FireGeneration Collaborative, a youth-led organization that aims to transform our relationship with fire from short-term disaster response and unstable jobs, toward long-term resilience efforts, healthy livelihoods, and the recentering of Indigenous leadership.

Trefny co-led FireGen’s national campaign which called for formal roles for youth in wildfire policy, endorsed by student and worker groups from across 25 states. The Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission responded, and several FireGen members and fellow young workers and Indigenous practitioners became some of the first youth fire experts to ever advise a federal commission. Additionally, FireGen’s director Ryan Reed, an Indigenous fire practitioner and firefighter, was appointed to the Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee, becoming the youngest federal advisor in US history.

Trefny has played a key role helping shape FireGen’s vision and voice, building research projects and events in the community, and pulling in over $350,000 in grants for the work. FireGen continues to advance Indigenous leadership and opportunities for frontline workers and youth to have a voice in their future.