New western training center seeks to grow prescribed fire capacity
Classrooms for training will be set up near prescribed fires in existing offices, or other locations, according to the strategy. Federal officials hope the effort will “increase the pace of prescribed fire training-to-qualification in the Western United States, provide trainees real-time experience in different fuel types and terrain, and ultimately increase national prescribed fire resource capacity.”
Forest Service rekindles burn practices with local tribes
In the early morning on Dec. 19, 2023, in the Long Meadow section of Sequoia National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service joined with members of the Tule River Tribe (Tule) and members from other local tribes to take part in a Tachi Yokuts Tribe (Yokuts) cultural tradition that had not been performed on Forest Service land for over 100 years.
Forest Service warns of budget cuts ahead of a risky wildfire season – what that means for safety
These are some of the reasons why an announcement from U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore on Feb. 8, 2024, is raising concerns. Moore told agency employees to expect budget cuts from Congress in 2024. His letter was thin on details. However, taken at face value, budget cuts could be interpreted as a reduction in the firefighting workforce, compounding recruitment and retention challenges that the Forest Service is already facing.
Indictment of US Forest Service ‘burn boss’ in Oregon could chill ‘good fires’ across the country
A “burn boss” with the U.S. Forest Service is facing unprecedented criminal charges for an escaped prescribed burn in rural Oregon, which may complicate nationwide goals to set low-intensity fires that can thin out excess vegetation and dead wood in overgrown forests to improve forest health and lower the risk of uncontrollable wildfires igniting.
In Oregon, a youth program prepares vulnerable landowners for wildfires
This is the Community Wildfire Protection Corps, a three-month paid program for young adults ages 19 to 26. It’s backed by state wildfire funding, and run by the Northwest Youth Corps.
The goal is to build fire-safe buffers around homes and infrastructure, with a focus on landowners who are older, disabled or without financial means. In the process, organizers also hope to train some of the next generation of wildland firefighters.
Many California native plants adapt to fire. Some are threatened by it.
For the native flora here in California, fire is an essential part of their life cycle.
Every year the rainy season brings growth, and plants bloom and set seed, before the dry season brings decay. Fire is like a reset to the whole system, Evan Meyer, the director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, said. “Fire is … as much of the landscape as rain,” Meyer added, “the plants are adapted to it and they expect it.”
The perverse policies that fuel wildfires
Gradually, it became clear that fire suppression was wrecking many of the forests it was intended to save. (Among the trees whose seeds require fire to germinate are giant sequoias.) These days, O’Connor writes, the Forest Service likes to boast that it oversees the country’s biggest prescribed-fire program, which burns almost 1.5 million acres a year. But this isn’t nearly enough to make up for what’s become known as the “fire deficit.”
In Oregon, a New Program Is Training Burn Bosses to Help Put More “Good Fire” on the Ground
More states and private landowners recognize the importance of prescribed burns to improve forest health and reduce the severity of wildfires, but the lack of firefighters trained to ignite and manage the blazes has slowed progress.
Timber company sues Forest Service for not putting out 2020 Beachie Fire before blowup
An Oregon timber company has sued the U.S. Forest Service for $33 million for not putting out the 2020 Beachie Creek Fire before it turned into a raging inferno.
Indigenous stewardship of forests topic of Feb. 7 Oregon State Science Pub
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Indigenous stewardship of Pacific Northwest forests as a way of increasing forests’ climate resiliency, particularly related to wildfires, will be the topic of Oregon State University’s Science Pub on Feb. 7.
Cristina Eisenberg, a community ecologist and associate dean for inclusive excellence and director of Tribal initiatives in Oregon State’s College of Forestry, and Ashley Russell, a faculty research assistant who works with Eisenberg, will give the talk at 6 p.m. at the Old World Deli in Corvallis. It can be viewed in person or online.
Climate changing: Research shows times for ‘prescribed burns’ in the West shifting
Deciding when and where to conduct prescribed burns is becoming increasingly important as the climate warms, and, according to a recent study, the timing and frequency of appropriate weather will also play a larger role.
Prescribed burns are an essential tool land managers use in reducing fuel availability for extreme wildfires, and conditions favorable to prescribed burns will become far less frequent in much of the West, especially the Southwest, according to a study published in October 2023 in Communications Earth & Environment.
However, the study found that parts of the northern Rocky Mountains will have more days to use prescribed burns, especially during the early and late winter months.
Lessons learned from the Bighorn Fire
Even though the fire burned more than 120,000 acres, people's properties were kept safe and as a whole, the fire was deemed a success in that regard.
Tim Ingalsbee with the Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology said, "What they knew from the get-go is that there would be some benefit to fire, and so we are still trying to contain that fire and keep it away from communities." That is exactly what happened.
Our tinderbox world: Wildfires and risk reduction
“The following websites and organizations can help you identify and implement a number of concrete actions that could protect your community or your own family and residence from wildfires:…Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (ecological fire management), Indigenous Peoples Burning Network…”
Debate intensifies over conservation of PNW’s old growth forests
The fight over the future of the last old and mature forests in America intensified Tuesday when the Biden administration called for preservation of old-growth trees.
The administration, after creating an inventory of the nation’s old growth, wants to amend 128 forest land-management plans to conserve and steward 25 million acres of old-growth forests and 68 million acres of mature forest across the national forest system.
For the Pacific Northwest — home to much of the nation’s remaining old forests — an effort is already underway to overhaul and update key old-growth protections in the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994, one of the world’s most ambitious conservation plans. More than 1 million acres of old and mature forest in Washington, Oregon and Northern California that were explicitly set aside for logging within the boundaries of the plan are under scrutiny.
Next Thanksgiving, Smokey Bear should talk about climate change
In an excellent story timed to Smokey’s 75th birthday in 2019, HuffPost reporter Chris D’Angelo made the case that the federal fire-prevention campaign “may be a net negative for the environment.” He talked with experts who told him that the bear’s “only you can prevent wildfires” message had obscured the important role that natural fire plays in healthy forest ecosystems.
Fighting wildfires: Young people are going into fire service and science careers
More frequently, those living in fire-prone areas are turning to groups who have coexisted with fire for generations. Controlled, intentional burns and other strategies enable the landscape and wildlife to thrive, mitigating climate change and offsetting future wildfires. “The way that I was raised, we look at resources as relatives. It is our obligation to take care of them,” Mahseelah says. “Our tribe practiced fire management long before we were on the reservation. Fire is medicine, it's rebirth, regeneration, cleansing. It is needed.”