The Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils and the National Association of State Foresters just published the 2020 National Prescribed Fire Use Report. This latest report provides an annual snapshot of forestry and rangeland prescribed fire use by U.S. state and region. Starting with 2020, the report will be updated annually to capture the annual variations in prescribed fire use that come from weather and other factors. The 2012, 2015, and 2018 reports can be found here.
News
SFE Webinar: The Importance of Management for Stabilizing Long-term Carbon in a Southeastern Forest Matrix Under Extreme Fire Weather
Host: US Forest Service Southern Research Station, the Southern Fire Exchange and the University of Florida.
Presenter: Louise Loudermilk, Ph.D., US Forest Service Southern Research Station
Abstract:
Hardwood-cypress swamps, or ephemeral wetlands, that typically burned less frequently form a spatial matrix with their more frequently burned neighbors, pine flatwoods, causing unique patterns of low to high intensity fires, variation in smoke emissions and overall ecosystem carbon stores in these southeastern forests. At the Osceola National Forest in Florida, our group examined the effects of different long-term management practices (prescribed fire, harvest, no fire) during extreme fire weather across these two vastly different, yet intertwined ecosystems using a simulation model. This presentation will discuss how future extreme fire weather may alter future fire conditions, and how we can spatially optimize prescribed fire and timber harvest to manage wildfire risk.
Registration Required: https://ufl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_v2N_twSBRBS4-d8xAxx9hg
Continue ReadingSFE Webinar Recordings: Longleaf Pine Forest Patch Dynamics and The Case for Prescribed Fire Science
The recordings from two recent Southern Fire Exchange webinars are now posted on the Southern Fire Exchange YouTube Channel webinar archive. “The Case for Prescribed Fire Science” with Dr. Morgan Varner from Tall Timbers Research Station and “Longleaf Pine Forest Patch Dynamics” with Dr. Kevin Robertson also from Tall Timbers Research Station were presented in April and May of 2020.
Late May US EPA Smoke Science Research Webinars
Two interesting US EPA research webinars will take place Wednesday, May 20th and Thursday, May 28th presenting new research on smoke data visualization and the health effects of smoke / PM2.5 . Members of the fire management and fire research communities of the Southeast may be particularly interested in these two webinars given the importance of smoke management for Southeastern prescribed fire programs.
EPA Tools and Resources Webinar: Wildland Fire Community Engagement and Data Visualization Tools
Wednesday 05/20/2020 3:00PM to 4:00PM EDT
Summary
“This presentation will highlight two wildland fire smoke and health projects. Smoke Sense is a crowdsourcing, citizen science app which engages the public to broaden awareness of wildland fire smoke locally as well as health protective measures and behaviors. This presentation will share findings from the past two wildfire seasons including community engagement and data visualization tools. The Smoke Ready Communities project offers a model and framework to help communities improve their response. It supports collaboration and capacity building and also fosters preparedness and response to wildfire smoke episodes. This presentation will share a solutions-driven approach for helping reduce the public health burden of smoke intrusion at the community level. Participants will learn about how these projects can integrate a community capacity lens with resources specifically related to wildland fire smoke, air quality and health.”
Air Quality and Healthy Hearts: Progress and Remaining Challenges Webinar
Thursday 05/28/2020 2:00PM to 3:30PM EDT
Summary
“This webinar provides an overview of newly published research by EPA scientists and their colleagues that helps fill key knowledge gaps. The findings, published in leading scientific journals, offer new insights into the progress made to protect at-risk individuals with chronic health problems. The research also identifies remaining environmental health challenges, such as determining risks faced from sustained exposure to elevated PM2.5 from wildfire smoke, which is being observed due to more frequent and larger wildland fires in the United States.”
Additional information about this webinar can be found here.
Continue Reading“The Case for Prescribed Fire Science” Webinar Recording Available
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.
Continue ReadingAn Extension Guide for Wildland Fire Programming
The Southern Fire Exchange recently contributed to a new informational guide from NC State Extension titled Wildland Fire Programming – A Guide for Extension and Outreach Professionals. The guide includes tips for hosting prescribed fire demonstrations, fire festivals, field tours and prescribed fire related workshops. Natural resource and forestry Cooperative Extension agents will certainly want to check out this guidebook as well as anyone who works in public outreach related to fire.
SFE also has several webinars related to this topic:
- Lessons Learned from Hosting Learn-n-Burn Events: Moving Landowners from Interest to Action
- Fire Festivals: Lessons Learned from Planning and Coordinating
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.
Fire Lines Wins ANREP Gold Award
SFE’s Fire Lines newsletter received the 2020 Gold Award from the Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals (ANREP) for best Newsletter or Series of Articles. In 2019, SFE’s Lessons Learned from Hosting Learn-n-Burn Events webinar received the Gold Award for best Televised Conference – Video Conference – Webinar.
Continue ReadingApril Issue of Driptorch Digest
Our partners at the Southeast Prescribed Fire Update have posted a brand new April issue of the Driptorch Digest. The e-newsletter includes regional prescribed fire news, funding opportunities, training resources and research. This issue includes additional curated resources that can provide the prescribed fire community with information that may support making fire management decisions during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Continue ReadingSpring 2020 WFM RD&A Newsletter
Our partners at the Wildland Fire Management RD&A program recently published a new issue of their program newsletter (pdf). WFM RD&A are known for continuing to develop and host the IFTDSS software package.
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