Editor’s note: Kori Blankenship is a certified fire ecologist with The Nature Conservancy’s LANDFIRE team. She combines on the ground experience in forestry and fire with technical expertise in ecological modeling and spatial analysis to support conservation and land management efforts across the U.S. Her current projects focus on understanding contemporary and historical fire regimes, quantifying ecosystem conditions, and investigating trends in prescribed fire use. Fire Networks staff sat down with Kori earlier this year to learn a bit more about her work and perspective, and how fire practitioners can contribute to a more complete picture of fire work happening on the ground.
Fire Networks Staff: First, for those that might not be familiar, could you say a little bit about what LANDFIRE is and your role?
Kori Blankenship: LANDFIRE is a shared program between that USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior that maps vegetation and fire information across all lands in the United States. The program also maps and models historical vegetation and fire regimes and that is where I work. My team collaborates with experts around the country to document how vegetation grew and responded to disturbances such as fire prior to European colonization of North America.
How did you get into this work?
My first job out of high school was working for the Forest Service in post-fire recovery. They trained me as a wildland firefighter, and I guess that’s really when I got hooked. I liked the people and the hard, outside work. I went on to study geography and fire in college while working on field crews in the summers.
What are the key questions you’re trying to answer, and why are these questions important?
One important question that my team works on is understanding historical fire regimes. There are a lot of questions about the importance of historical information given a changing climate, but I think it’s important because it helps us understand how ecosystems adapted and responded to change in the past. This helps us understand where we are today and how these systems might respond to change in the future.
The other question that I’ve been working on recently is: Where are we doing treatments, like prescribed fire, in the western U.S.? There is a lot of effort, especially in western dry conifer forests, to treat areas to reduce wildfire risk to communities and to improve ecosystem conditions. To understand where that work is happening and measure progress towards our goals, we have to know where, when, and what type of treatments are taking place. It turns out that’s not as easy as it sounds!
What types of data do you look at to try to find these answers?
There is a lot of work in this area. I have primarily used the LANDFIRE Events data because it aims to compile treatment data across all lands. But, there are some other important data sources out there that are coming on line. Two publicly available datasets that folks should be aware of are TWIG (Treatment Wildfire Interagency Geodatabase) and GARP (Grant Accomplishment Reporting Portal).
All of these datasets aggregate treatment data, but the completeness and quality of the source information varies dramatically. On federal lands, we have pretty good data going back a few decades because federal managers have tracked their treatment activities. Outside of federal lands, there are a few states and other entities that track treatments, but generally speaking, the data are lacking or not easily available to the public.
It seems that the amount of prescribed fire that takes place and its impacts are difficult to quantify. Is this true? If so, why?
That’s absolutely true. One reason for this is that it is hard to know where prescribed and cultural fires occur. The accounting is incomplete because prescribed fire in many situations is difficult to detect from space and our records from practitioners are incomplete or not publicly available, especially off of federally managed lands. This underscores the need to collect and aggregate treatment information from as many sources as possible to get a more complete understanding of the work that is happening.
You’ve been doing this kind of work for a couple of decades. What has surprised you most?
Treatments, especially prescribed fires, can be difficult to map from space. Despite all our tech, we really need human records to be able to measure our treatment work right now.
Are there things fire practitioners can do to help us all understand better how much prescribed fire is happening, where it’s happening and where it should be happening?
The first step is to share where you are doing work. Programs like LANDFIRE can then aggregate this information so we can develop a more complete picture of who’s burning when and where.
If you’re burning, share your data! It will help us understand collectively where we are working and where more work needs to be done. More info on contributing your treatment information to LANDFIRE can be found here: Contribute Data | LandFire.