The costs of wildland fire in the United States are enormous, not only in terms of the financial impacts of fire suppression and post-fire rehabilitation of property and ecosystems, but also in terms of loss of lives, impacts on physical health of nearby communities, effects on local and regional economies from losses of revenue, and the impacts of cascading events such as landslides and flooding. Wildland fire management has become even more difficult because of increasingly dry conditions in some areas of the country and the expansion of the urban-wildland interface, among other factors. Within the federal government, for example, more than 50% of the Forest Service's annual budget was dedicated to wildland fire in 2015, up from 16% in 1995.

List of Presentations:

Workshop Welcome and Introduction

• Remarks from Planning Committee Chair (Dar Roberts)
• Forest Service Remarks (Dep. Chief Rodriguez-Franco and Chief Tidwell)
• The Origins of Forest Service Wildland Fire Research (Diane Smith)

Introduction of Keynote Speakers

• Fire Science’s American Century (Stephen Pyne) including Q&A
• Future of Fire in the United States (Jennifer K. Balch) including Q&A

Panel 1 Intro: Understanding Fire: State of the Science and Research Priorities (Moderator: Monica G. Turner (NAS), University of Wisconsin-Madison)

• Fire regimes and the ecological role of fire in U.S. landscapes (Meg Krawchuk, Oregon State University)
• Predicting and mapping fire and fire effects (Mark Finney, U.S. Forest Service)
• Fire and fuels management: What works where? (Scott Stephens, University of California, Berkeley)
• Panel 1 Q&A

Panel 2 Intro: Living with Fire: State of the Science around Fire-Adapted Communities (Moderator: Jeffrey Rubin, Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue)

• Changing environmental drivers, tipping points, and resilience in fire-prone systems (Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey)
• Understanding the wildfire policy context: Where are we now? (Toddi Steelman, University of Saskatchewan)
• Community variation in relationships and response to wildland fire (Travis Paveglio, University of Idaho)
• Translating fire science into fire management: State of the field, challenges, and opportunities (J. Kevin Hiers, Tall Timbers Research Station & Land Conservancy)
• Wildland fire risk perceptions and mitigation behavior (Patty Champ, U.S. Forest Service)
• Panel 2 Q&A

Workshop Closing