Resources and Relationships for Local Capacity: A Conversation with Community Navigators
Editor’s note: FAC Net’s backbone organization, The Watershed Research and Training Center, is one of several non profit organizations that are partnering with the U.S. Forest Service on a new “Community Navigator initiative” to better connect communities with federal funding and partnerships for wildfire and climate resilience. This initiative hopes to strengthen capacity within local-level partners…
Barriers and Opportunities for Wilderness Fire in a Time of Change
Editor’s note: Clare Boerigter is the Wilderness Fire Research Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute (ALWRI). Clare is working with ALWRI research ecologist Dr. Sean Parks and collaborators on a multi-year project to investigate federal wilderness fire management, including the challenges, benefits, and barriers to the use of prescribed fire within wilderness landscapes….
Fire Diplomacy: Creating Consensus and Sustaining Collective Action
Editor’s note: This week, we are diving into the world of fire policy with a blog authored by Annie Schmidt (former FAC Net Policy and Partnerships Director) and Tyson Bertone-Riggs. Annie and Tyson were the staff co-leads for the congressionally-chartered Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission (Commission). They supported the development of 167 consensus recommendations…
Fire 101: Resources for Those New to Fire
Editor’s note: Autumn Bjugstad is the Executive Coordinator for The Nature Conservancy’s North America Fire Team, an active group in stewarding the Fire Networks. In this blog, Autumn, who was brand new to fire before beginning her role, shares a variety of resources that helped introduce her to the complicated and fascinating world of fire….
Stories from Women-In-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (WTREX)
Editor’s note: This week, our blog manager Annie Leverich is attending a Women-In-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX) in north-central Nebraska at the Niobrara Valley Preserve. WTREX, modeled after Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX), are inclusive events to support women and other underrepresented practitioners in fire to develop skills, connections, and qualifications. In this blog,…
Resource Roundup: Wildfire Preparedness in Your Community
Each year, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) hosts a campaign for Wildfire Community Preparedness Day on the first Saturday in May. This year, it falls on Saturday, May 4th, 2024. While this work is important to think about year-round, having an organized springtime push can really get projects moving forward – from individual household…
Third Time’s the Charm: Burning at Cottonwood Gulch
Editor’s note: Carlos Saiz is the Southwest Fire and Fuels Coordinator for the Forest Stewards Guild. Sam Berry is the Guild’s Southwest Associate Director and a Fire Learning Network Project Lead for work in New Mexico. In this blog, they describe a successful prescribed burn in New Mexico that managed to bring together a broad…
Choosing a Fire Future: Lessons from Southwest Colorado
Editor’s note: Michael Caggiano is a longtime Fire Learning Network partner and Fire Management Specialist with the USDA Forest Service. Ty Aldworth is a Research Associate with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute. In this blog, they share lessons learned from six 2023 fires in Southwest Colorado. This blog is the second in a special 2024…
Pyro Futures: Imagining Our Evolving Relationship with Fire
Editor’s note: Emily Schlickman and Brett Milligan are professors of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). In this blog, they introduce the Pyro Futures exhibition and Design by Fire book, both projects that imagine what our future relationships with fire could look like. All text and images can…
Our Responsibility to the Future
Editor’s note: Ryan Reed is from the Karuk, Hupa and Yurok tribes in Northern California. He is an Indigenous Fire Practitioner, co-founder and program director of the FireGeneration Collaborative, wildland firefighter, University of California Berkeley master’s student, and prides himself as a Karuk Medicine person strongly connected to his cultural practices and Pikyavish (World Renewal)…