Posts Tagged: Fire Network

More than 800 wildland fire professionals gather for international conference in Monterey

UC ANR among sponsors of 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress

Scientists, land managers, educators and students from a variety of organizations worldwide will gather from Dec. 4-8 in Monterey, California for the 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress. The conference is hosted by the Association for Fire Ecology in cooperation with the California Fire Science Consortium.

Major sponsors include University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, with the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County as the host tribe. There are more than 25 additional sponsors and exhibitors representing federal and state agencies, universities, nonprofits, tribal organizations and companies.

“As we know from recent fire events across the globe, wildland fire issues are complex and there is an urgent need to work together in new and creative ways to address wildfire-related challenges,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, Fire Network director at UC ANR. “We need to identify opportunities to promote fire-resilient communities and environments.”

This event will include workshops, field trips and three full days of presentations, discussion groups and networking opportunities around the theme, “Igniting Connections: Celebrating Our Fire Family Across Generations, Cultures and Disciplines.”

On Monday, Dec. 4, the Fire Congress will kick off with 10 workshops and trainings, offering opportunities for participants to build and apply new skills in modeling, collaborative planning, risk management and more. From Tuesday morning to Thursday afternoon, the Fire Congress program is filled with innovative plenary sessions, more than 500 oral and poster presentations, and opportunities for sharing information through discussion groups and meetings.

For the first time, the conference will also feature an Indigenous Culture and Art Showcase, taking place on Tuesday, Dec. 5. The entire event concludes on Friday, Dec. 8 with field trips to explore nearby natural areas to see how the concepts discussed at the Fire Congress are being applied in California.

Participants will be encouraged to share and explore proactive solutions that apply Western science and Indigenous knowledge to meet desired management and societal outcomes.

More conference information at http://afefirecongress.org.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Lenya Quinn-Davidson (University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources): lquinndavidson@ucanr.edu, 707-272-0637

Morgan Varner (Tall Timbers Research Station): mvarner@talltimbers.org, 707-845-1659

Jeffrey Kane (Cal Poly Humboldt): Jeffrey.Kane@humboldt.edu, 928-637-4128

Reforms needed to expand prescribed burns

Study highlights 4 strategies to overcome barriers to prescribed fire in the West

Prescribed fire, which mimics natural fire regimes, can help improve forest health and reduce the likelihood of catastrophic wildfire. But this management tool is underused in the fire-prone U.S. West and Baja California, Mexico, due to several barriers.

A paper from the University of California, Davis, pinpoints those obstacles and suggests four key strategies that policymakers and land managers can take to get more “good fire” on the ground in North America's fire-adapted ecosystems. The paper also provides examples of how people are surmounting some of these obstacles.

“Prescribed fire is one of the most important tools we have for restoring natural fire regimes and undoing the effects of a century of fire suppression,” said lead author John Williams, a project scientist with the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “But there are a number top-down barriers at the upper levels of management that keep us from growing the workforce and getting burns done at the scale and extent needed. We point out some of the big ways that agency leaders and policymakers can dismantle those barriers and empower the full range of people capable of doing this work, from burn bosses and citizen-prescribed burn associations to nonprofits and tribal groups.”

The paper, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, centers on the North American Mediterranean climate zone, which includes most of California, southwestern Oregon, western Nevada and northern Baja California in Mexico. Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Fire Network, is a co-author of the paper.

A natural process

Fire is a natural process that has helped shape this region, but the area has experienced a spike in destructive, high-severity wildfires over the past decade. In fact, three of the five largest wildfires in continental U.S. history occurred in this region in just the past five years. This is due to a combination of climate change and fuel accumulation driven by a century of policies that encouraged fire suppression, curtailed Indigenous cultural burning, and favored harvest of the largest, most fire-tolerant trees, the study notes.

While scientists and resource managers recognize the need for more prescribed fire, its application has not kept pace with the enormity of the challenge. The study said that is because management policies prioritize fire suppression over prevention. There is also a limited fire workforce; regulatory hurdles like permitting, insurance and liability; and few incentives or protections for landowners, tribal members and other people who burn responsibly.

4 key strategies

Researchers identified four key areas where supportive institutional and agency leadership can help expand prescribed fire in the region:

1) Fire culture. After decades of emphasizing wildfire suppression, current fire management culture “does not adequately promote prescribed fire as a management tool,” the study said. Support for prescribed fire along the entire chain of command within agencies is needed to foster a new culture that incentivizes and enables prescribed fire practitioners within and outside of government agencies.

2) Funding. Prescribed fire is considerably more cost-effective than wildfire suppression, which can cost more than $2 billion a year in the U.S., but there is little dedicated funding for prescribed fire projects and lack of flexibility as to when such money can be spent. This impedes fire staffing and limits the kinds of projects that can be done. Year-round, dedicated funding and resources could help increase prescribed fire capacity.

3) Capacity building and cooperation. Connecting agencies with landowners, community members, tribes, prescribed burning associations (PBAs), prescribed fire training exchanges (TREXs) and others can facilitate responsible, effective prescribed fire and cultural burning exchanges. Such groups have limited reach and require investment and support to meet demand.

Inter-organizational agreements can also help local, state and federal agencies share resources and staffing. Formalizing and fully integrating such agreements into fire management plans remains a challenge, the study said. Collaborations that support Indigenous cultural burning are also key.

Partnerships must recognize the unique dimensions of cultural burning, which are inseparable from Indigenous culture. Educating land managers and decision makers about tribal sovereignty and federal American Indian law is critical. Introducing legislation that supports cultural burning can also foster such collaborations.

4) Monitoring and adaptive management. Designated funding and personnel for quantitative monitoring after a prescribed burn can help practitioners better measure success and then apply lessons to future burns.

“All of the barriers identified in the study can be overcome, and they have been at least partially resolved in other parts of the U.S., as well as in other Mediterranean climate regions, such as southwestern Australia,” said co-author Hugh Safford, a research ecologist in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy and director of the California Prescribed Fire Monitoring Program. “Fundamental to setting the situation right is developing a culture of safe and regular fire use in California and neighboring states by all landowners and managers, and reducing the officiousness, risk aversion and bureaucracy that hinders access to the tool by the public.”

Additional co-authors include Ashley Grupenhoff and Beth Rose Middleton of UC Davis; Joe Restaino of CAL FIRE; Edward Smith of The Nature Conservancy; Chris Adlam of Oregon State University; and Hiram Rivera-Huerta of Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico.

This research received financial support from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).

This story was originally published on the UC Davis News site.

Quinn-Davidson to lead UC ANR Fire Network

Lenya Quinn-Davidson has been named director of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources' Fire Network, effective April 1. UC ANR's statewide Fire Network will build connections and capacity among UC ANR scientists, practitioners, land management and regulatory agencies, policymakers and communities to work toward fire resilience in California.

Wildfire has become more frequent and intense in California with climate change. To meet the challenge of wildfire, UC ANR has hired several new UC Cooperative Extension fire advisors and staff to study issues related to wildfire and to assist Californians with their preparations. Quinn-Davidson and the Fire Network will provide critical coordination and connection across geographies and disciplines ranging from forestry to food safety to livestock to water quality.

“Lenya has more than a decade of work in fire science and has carried out her work through partnerships and community engagement,” said Glenda Humiston, UC vice president of agriculture and natural resources. “Her experience and successful track record will enhance how we coordinate our many layers of research and education related to fire prevention, recovery, public policy and workforce development.”

Quinn-Davidson has served as a UC Cooperative Extension fire advisor for the North Coast since 2016. During her three-year term as the Fire Network director, she will continue her research program and continue to build capacity among landowners, tribes and other communities to use prescribed fire throughout the state. Quinn-Davidson also leads the national/international WTREX program, focused on empowering women and other underrepresented people who work in fire.

 “I'm honored to take on this new role, and I can't wait to further grow, connect and support our fire efforts within UC ANR,” Quinn-Davidson said.

“There are currently dozens of UC ANR people working on fire issues throughout California, including four new UC Cooperative Extension fire advisors and a new academic coordinator who were hired in the last year,” Quinn-Davidson said. “We also have plans to hire more fire advisors and fire-focused staff in the coming year. This network of UC ANR fire leaders will be able to provide more resources, training and research to help Californians better live with fire.”

UC ANR's Fire Network will also enhance communication.

“The network will increase the flow of information to improve how we conduct academic research, strengthen local efforts by sharing relevant data and ideas, create and build capacity for different management techniques and tools, and facilitate new research and programming related to diverse facets of fire in California,” said Deanne Meyer, UC ANR interim associate vice president. 

Before becoming a UCCE fire advisor, Quinn-Davidson worked on fire projects for five years as a UCCE staff research associate. Since 2009, she has served as director of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council. Prior to joining UC Cooperative Extension, she was a research assistant in the Wildland Fire Laboratory at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt and worked on stream restoration for Bioengineering Associates, Inc.

She earned a master's degree in social science, environment & community from Cal Poly Humboldt and a bachelor's degree in conservation and resource studies from UC Berkeley.

Quinn-Davidson, who has published more than 70 peer-reviewed and popular articles, will be based in Humboldt County. Follow her on Twitter @lenyaqd.

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