Untrammeling the Wilderness
Editor’s note: Clare Boerigter is the Wilderness Fire Research Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute (ALWRI), part of the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station. Clare is working with ALWRI Research Ecologist Dr. Sean Parks and collaborators Dr. Jonathan Long (U.S. Forest Service), Dr. Jonathan Coop (Western Colorado University), Dr. Melanie Armstrong…
A Shared Love for Community-Led Fire: The 2024 PBA Leader’s Exchange in California
Editor’s note: Annie Leverich is the communications manager for FAC Net, and manages the Fire Networks blog and TREX/WTREX social media channels. She is also active in supporting communications around cultural burning and prescribed fire in California, where she lives. In early June 2024, Annie traveled to Hopland, CA to attend the California Prescribed Burn…
Parmer Lane Fire: An Accidental Success Story
Editor’s note: Kari Hines, Firewise Coordinator and Public Information Officer for Texas A&M Forest Service, has 10 years experience responding to wildfires in Central Texas and beyond. In this blog, Kari recounts the initial understanding of the Parmer Lane Fire near Austin, Texas, and how the impacts were less severe than anticipated for a wildfire…
How Wildfire Policy Hits the Ground
Editor’s note: Emery Cowan is a program manager with FAC Net and helps support our engagement in the Forest Service’s Community Navigators initiative. In this blog, Emery recaps common themes that have emerged through our Community Navigators work and from a three-part peer learning series we co-hosted focused on practitioner experiences of how the recent…
Eight Blogs You May Have Missed From the Last Year
This week marks one full year since we rebranded the blog to the “Fire Networks Blog.” Previously known as the FAC Net Blog, this change was made with the intention to represent the work and voices of practitioners across the suite of efforts in the Fire Networks partnership (Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, Fire Learning…
Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges: Recent Updates from the Field
Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (known as TREX) are experiential burning experiences that take place around the country and world. The TREX program, one of the four Fire Networks, represents a cooperative burning model that has flexibility to include fire practitioners from many backgrounds and levels of experience. Learn more about the TREX program on the…
Practitioner Wellbeing Resources from the Archives
This week, we’re sharing a selection of posts from the recent blog archives that cover topics related to mental health and wellbeing in the fire community. Take a moment to review these resources and consider how they may apply to you, whether as a practitioner, a supervisor, a first responder, or just a human being….
Sharing the Flame: Arkansas’ International Fire Exchange 2024
Editor’s note: Brigette Coleman-Williams serves as the Director of Marketing and Communications for The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas. This blog covers activities carried out by the South Central Fire Learning Network with support from the national Fire Learning Network. Nothing excites McRee Anderson, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Fire Restoration Program Director, more than the first…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Fire: Lessons Learned From the Talking Fire Webinar Series
Editor’s note: Laurel Kays is the manager of the Fire Learning Network. She recently organized and hosted the Talking Fire webinar series with Fire Networks communications lead James Miller. In this blog, Laurel shares some of the key takeaways from the webinar series, as well as links to each webinar recording for further reference. We…
Protecting our People: Psychological Safety in Fire and Fieldwork
Editor’s note: Kayla Stukes (PhD Student in Forestry) received her master’s degree in Forestry with a minor in Human Dimensions from NC State University and is the Executive Assistant for Field Inclusive. Field Inclusive strives to provide tangible and actionable improvements in the natural resources by addressing social field safety issues related to justice, equity,…