Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. When flames overtook the hillsides above the Zagros and Hassanabad neighborhoods in the Abidar highlands of Iranian Kurdistan, there was no formal emergency response team. No firebreaks. No protective gear. Only a handful of local environmentalists—among them Hamid Moradi—stepped in, as they had so many times before, to fight the blaze. Moradi was not a firefighter by training. He was a lawyer by profession, the director of the environmental group Shnay Nawzhin Kurdistan, and a fixture in Sanandaj’s civil society. But in Kurdistan, environmental defense often falls to ordinary citizens. When the fire broke out on July 24, Moradi joined several others to contain it. By the time the flames were extinguished, he was dead. So too were two of his companions: Chiako Yousefinejad, a well-known athlete, and Khabat Amini, another longtime environmentalist. Their deaths marked a familiar tragedy in a region where environmental work is both essential and perilous. The fires that regularly consume Kurdistan’s forests and rangelands are not always natural. Many are suspected to be deliberately set—by developers seeking land, smugglers carving routes, or military actors asserting control. The state’s response is frequently delayed, sometimes absent, and occasionally hostile. Environmentalists work without support and often without recognition. Official media may refer to them as “activists” or “volunteers.” In truth, they are environmental first responders. Moradi was among the most committed. Born in Divandareh and based in Sanandaj, he spent years…This article was originally published on Mongabay