The April Southern Fire Exchange webinar “The Case for Prescribed Fire Science” with Dr. J. Morgan Varner from Tall Timbers Research Station is now archived on the Southern Fire Exchange YouTube Channel. The slides from the presentation (pdf) can be accessed as well. Thank you all for joining us and we hope you’ll join us for one of our upcoming fire science webinars.
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Remote and Online Wildland Fire and Fire Science Training Resources
During this time of COVID-19 altered work schedules, we recognize that there may be new opportunities to train, update, and learn new wildland fire information. This page is a collection of wildland fire and fire science related training resources that can be accessed remotely for little or no cost. These resources can be used to develop in-service training events, RT-130 refreshers or other classes for professionals, landowners, and students. We are working to add to this list over time as we become aware of new programs and opportunities. If you are aware of additional training resources that should be added to this list, please let us know ([email protected]).
Please note that inclusion on this list does not indicate specific endorsement or review of the information provided by the educational programs.
Fire Weather Training Resources
- COMET Advanced Fire Weather Forecasters Course (18 hrs.) The Advanced Fire Weather Forecasters Distance Learning Course addresses advanced training needs of Incident Meteorologists (IMETs), Fire Weather Program Leaders (FWPLs) in NOAA’s NWS weather forecast offices (WFOs), and Regional Program Managers. These individuals are responsible for maintaining local fire weather programs and supporting all-hazards incidents on site including wildfires, hazardous material releases, and incidents of national significance.
- COMET GOES-R/JPSS Case Exercise: Detecting and Monitoring US Western Wildfires New-generation GOES-R and JPSS satellite products offer improved capabilities for detecting and monitoring wildland fires in the Western US and similar geographic regions. In the case of the northern California Kincade fire of October 2019, satellite monitoring capabilities provided useful tactical information to meteorologists who were working with fire agencies, emergency managers and first responders throughout the life of the fire. The lesson takes learners through two significant points in the life of the Kincade fire. Multiple satellite products are applied toward monitoring the conditions involving a potentially rapidly spreading fire. To identify how and when satellite information can be most effective, learners compare different products that can aid meteorologists in identifying fire starts and rapid spread associated with high winds and low relative humidity in the difficult terrain of California. The intended audience of GOES-R/JPSS Case Exercise: Detecting and Monitoring US Western Wildfires is operational meteorologists, including IMETs, and others needing to use satellite information for fire/smoke detection and monitoring. The lesson should also appeal to individuals from emergency operation centers and others (fire and land management agency personnel, USFS and state forestry fire behavior analysts) with interest in detecting and monitoring fires.
- COMET Navigating the National Weather Service Fire Weather Program (1 hr.) This lesson provides the latest Fire Weather Program information to new and veteran staff in the US National Weather Service. It includes an overview of the organizational structure and responsibilities of each Fire Weather Program branch, main policy documents, and partners that collaborate and use the program’s product and services. The learners will play a Jeopardy-style game and practice using a process map to resolve various problems at different levels of the Fire Weather Program. The lesson will take between 45 and 60 minutes to complete (not including the quiz).
Online NWCG Training Resources
- Fire in the Field wildland firefighter training courses are offered online or on CD-Rom by Interactive Training Media, Inc. The courses are currently recognized as National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) training equivalents in many states. Training may require partnering with a fire agency or NWCG qualified Instructor.
- Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center has much to offer to the wildland firefighter and prescribed fire practitioner. With a focus on safety, the center provides feedback and a place to share knowledge to improve safety, performance, efficiency, and organizational learning throughout the entire wildland fire community.
- National Wildfire Coordinating Group Training Catalog includes a variety of resources, including downloadable training courses for some positions. NWCG has also made the following courses available for download: S-131 | S-190 | S-200 | S-203 | S-211 | S-212 | S-215 | S-230 | S-260 | S-290.
- The Wildland Fire Safety Training Annual Refresher (WFSTAR) library contains the entire catalogue of RT-130 videos and resources developed for annual fire line refresher courses.
- WFSTAR Firefighting Orders and Watch Out Situations Immersive Activity developed and hosted by the WFTSTAR team that creates learning resources for RT-130 programs.
- S-290 Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior (15 hrs.) is the second course in a five course sequence developing wildland fire behavior prediction skills and knowledge. In the Wildland Fire Qualifications System Guide, PMS 310-1, this course is required of those planning to work as one of the Single Resource Bosses or a Fire Effects Monitor on wildfires, fire use fires, and prescribed fires. It builds upon the basics in S-190, Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior, but with more detailed information about characteristics and interactions of the wildland fire environment (fuels, weather, and topography) that affect wildland fire behavior for safety purposes.
Online Non-NWCG Wildland Fire Training
- FEMA National Fire Academy Online Courses offer several self-study and online-mediated courses of interest to wildland fire professionals.
- Wildland Fire Learning Portal offers several on-demand self-enroll courses.
- World of Wildland Fire Video Series (1.5 hrs) is a series of technical YouTube videos that cover topics ranging from fire ecology to fuel moisture to fire behavior and fuel load sampling. For more information on this program, see the Wildland Fire Education & Training Collaborative (WETC) includes multiple sources of media, including but not limited to books, videos and classroom exercises, for the purpose of synthesizing the knowledge in fire science.
- LANDFIRE Instructional and Tutorial Video Series provides instructional videos, tutorials and case studies for accessing, using and analyzing LANDFIRE datasets.
- Wildfire Lessons Learned Center TED Ed Lessons are wildland fire focused presentations and discussion materials for learning from past wildfire events.
Fire Science Webinar Recordings
Check out the upcoming and archived webinar SFE webinars from the past ten years. Continuing education credits are often offered for participation in live webinars.
- Other JFSP Fire Science Exchanges also provide fire science, wildland fire, and prescribed fire webinar opportunities that may be of interest.
- Forestry Webinar Portal offers live and on-demand webinars on a variety of topics. Continuing education credits are often offered not only for live webinars, but recorded on-demand webinars as well.
- The U.S. Drought Portal, maintained by the National Integrated Drought Information System provides a calendar of webinars on drought conditions in various regions, including the Southeast.
Online General Prescribed Fire Courses
- Introduction to Southeastern Prescribed Fire is an eXtension course to introduce students to the fundamentals of prescribed burning in southeastern forested ecosystems. At the end of the course, students should have a working knowledge of fire law, fire terminology, fire prescriptions, fire safety, firebreaks, smoke management, and a basic understanding of how to conduct a prescribed burn. To access the training, follow the link and search “prescribed fire”.
- Basic Prescribed Fire Training is an eXtension course for landowners, land managers, and state and federal personnel interested in the use of fire as a management tool in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. To access the training, follow the link and search “prescribed fire”.
- North Carolina State University eFIRE is an interactive online course that uses 360 degree videos to provide information on how to prepare, conduct, and evaluate a prescribed burn. While targeted towards private landowners in the Southeast, the principles are applicable for burners anywhere.
- University of Georgia Preparing for Wildfires with Firescaping is a free course for Master Gardeners and others that provides interactive training on fire-resistant landscaping. The course also provides training and resources to prepare course participants to share the information with their local communities
Online Smoke Training
- Smoke Management and Air Quality for Land Managers is a tutorial on smoke management and air quality. The refresher includes four lessons, each of which can be completed in about half an hour; however, links and interactions allow further investigation of several topics.
- Wildland Fire Personnel Smoke Exposure Guidebook is a draft document and a work in progress. The authors feel the guidance information within will be useful to wildland fire personnel, however in the future content may be added and edited.
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New USFS Wildfire Risk Visualization Tool
The brand new Wildfire Risk to Communities interactive map and data visualization tool provides individuals, communities, leaders, agencies and cooperatives seamless wildfire risk information for all 50 states. The interactive browser-based map data and reports are available at the community, county and state levels. The tool is intended to provide citizens and decision makers with information that can help them to understand wildfire risk based on hazards and vulnerabilities. This information can assist with scenario planning, fuel treatment prioritization and a wide array of fire adapted community related processes. Wildfire mitigation specialists will definitely want to check out this resource.
Continue ReadingUpcoming Special Fire Issue of the Journal Remote Sensing
The open-access MDPI journal Remote Sensing is seeking submissions for an upcoming special issue titled “Fires on Forest Environments”. Manuscript submissions are due October 31, 2020.
From the call for papers:
Dear Colleagues,
The increase frequency and damage that fires cause in natural ecosystem is becoming a global fingerprint of climate change. Recent fires in California, Europe and the Amazon basin are a clear example of the need for accurate monitoring and assessment of conditions of fires and the conditions that can cause then, respectively. In this special issue, we would like to explore the role of fires and its monitoring and assessment via remote sensing technologies. We invite those researchers interested on the topics above to submit their contributions. As climate change becomes more predominant, and ecosystems become more responsive to natural and human induced fires, there is a pressing need to build consensus and knowledge base on fire remote-sensing topics. Therefore, regular, methods and synthesis papers are invited.
Prof. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa
Dr. Joanne Nightingale
Guest Editors
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2020 Advanced Fire Environment Learning Unit Videos
A series of recorded talks from the Advanced Fire Environment Learning Unit are now posted online. The 2020 series included presentations on updates to FlamMap, Red Flag Warnings and Quantitative Risk Assessments.
Continue ReadingPartner Webinar: Engaging Local Communities to Restore Fire-adapted Ecosystems
Continue ReadingWebinar Summary:
Nationwide, the frequency and scale of catastrophic wildfires are growing at alarming rates, challenging forest and rangeland managers’ abilities to maintain ecologically resilient landscapes and fire-safe communities. To meet these demands, research and extension professionals are devising interactive and novel programs to engage and build capacity among landowners, agency land managers and decision-makers, environmental non-governmental organizations, and technical service professionals to address ecological, economic, and social dimensions of wildland and prescribed fire.This webinar will highlight:
Lenya Quinn-Davidson, Area Fire Extension Advisor, University of California Cooperative Extension
Derek Scasta, Rangeland Extension Specialist, Assistant Professor of Rangeland Management, University of Wyoming
Jennifer Fawcett, Extension Associate, North Carolina State University ExtensionJoin Lenya, Derek and Jennifer as they share their programming with us!
Webinar series sponsored by Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA)
This webinar series is funded through the Renewable Resource Extension Act under the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture as Award number 2018-46401-288801. The USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.
The project team consists of natural resource professionals from across the U.S. These webinars are focused on the critical issues identified in the past two RREA strategic plans. The purpose is to feature creative, innovative, and effective Extension programs. The webinars will be an opportunity for renewable resource extension professionals to share, learn, and connect with their colleagues across land-grant institutions and disciplines. It is our hope that the webinars will bring increased public awareness of the RREA program and result in more informed, better served stakeholders.
Fire Ecology vol. 16 Research Alert
The recently published volume 16 of the open access journal Fire Ecology includes several peer-reviewed research articles relevant to the fire management and research communities in the South. Remember: open access publications allow for free access to the materials without access or subscription charges. Here are some of the most recent articles that you may find interesting:
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- Prescribed fire science: the case for a refined research agenda
- Effects of frequent fire and mowing on resprouting shrubs of Florida scrub, USA
- The effect of scale in quantifying fire impacts on species habitats
- Radiant heating rapidly increases litter flammability through impacts on fuel moisture
- The influence of repeated prescribed fire on decomposition and nutrient release in uneven-aged loblolly–shortleaf pine stands
- Factors influencing the persistence of reindeer lichens (Cladonia subgenus Cladina) within frequent-fire environments of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, USA
NWCG Fire Environment Poster PMS 439
The NWCG Fire Environment Poster has a great visual summary of the factors that can influence fire behavior. Download the poster, print it, share it and use it as an instructional resource in your next RT-130 Refresher, workshop or class.
Continue ReadingNew Article: “Solving the Duff Problem”
The latest issue of the Longleaf Leader magazine from our partners at the The Longleaf Alliance features the article “Solving the Duff Problem” written by Southern Fire Exchange staff Laurel Kays and David Godwin. The article highlights recent research and management findings that have helped to improve longleaf survival following reintroduction burns on sites with heavy duff loads. The Southern Fire Exchange has partnered with researchers and managers over the past few years to develop new workshops, field tours, presentations and a fact sheet that focus on addressing duff fire management challenges.
Continue ReadingPartner Webinar: Listening to the Flow – Discoveries from Wildland Fire Acoustics
Continue ReadingHost: Lake States Fire Science Consortium
Presenter: Kara Yedinak, Forest Products Lab, USDA – Forest Service
Abstract: Sound is a fundamental part of our experience when interacting with the world around us. So fundamental in fact, that we often forget to question what it is we are hearing. Our long relationship with all aspects of fire, including the sounds of fire, are deeply intuitive and yet elusive. What is creating the crackling sound we hear when vegetation burns? What is it really telling us about the exchange between vegetation and fire? What is making all that “noise” near a fire that causes us to raise our voices as we work or turn to observe with a fresh sense of alert concern? What sounds are involved that lead to a safe or unsettling feeling around wildland fire? In this webinar, I will take a deep dive into the crackling sound of fire; what is this sound really telling us, where is it coming from, and what else is going on besides what we hear?