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Sponsored by the Northwest Fire Science Consortium and Southern Rockies Fire Science Network

Presented by Courtney Schultz, associate professor of forest and natural resource policy at Colorado State University and director of the Public Lands Policy Group; and, Heidi Huber-Stearns, associate director of the Ecosystem Worksforce Program at the University of Oregon.

Prescribed fire is an important management tool on federal lands that is not being applied at the necessary or desired levels. Since 2017, we have been investigating policy barriers and opportunities for increasing prescribed fire application on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in the Western United States. In the first phase of our work, we found that lack of adequate capacity and funding were the most commonly cited barriers to increasing application of prescribed fire, and that successful approaches rely on collaborative forums and positions that allow for communication, problem-solving, and resource sharing among federal and state partners. In 2019, we completed case studies of locations using unique strategies to increase application of prescribed fire in complex land management contexts. In this talk, we will report on the primary themes from these case studies, highlighting specific examples of practice from different Forest Service and BLM units.

Event Details

Jan 27 2020, 1pm