Webinar
Wildfire evacuation preparedness, May 13, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar recording
- This webinar is presented with the University’s Osher Life Learning Institute, a member-driven organization offering short-term educational experiences for older adults in northern Nevada. Deputy Emergency Manager Jason Danen, with the Carson City Fire Department, will speak about emergency notification systems such as Code Red and other forms of communication to the public during a wildfire. In addition, Skyland Fire Adapted Communities’ Leader and Douglas County Community Emergency Response Team Member Ann Grant will discuss items to prepare for an evacuation go bag and a stay box.
Perspectives of a wildland fire investigator, May 18, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Fire Mitigation and Education Specialist/Fire Trespass Coordinator Bradley Milam, with the Bureau of Land Management, will share wildfire investigation experiences. Forest Fire Prevention Officer Jennifer Diamond, with the U.S. Forest Service – Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, will share some fire prevention tips.
The timeline of climate, weather and fire, June 10, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Climatology Research Professor Tim Brown, also director of the Western Regional Climate Center, will discuss how weather and climate influence fire in Nevada.
Protect, prevent and prepare with NV energy, June 24, 12–1:30 PDT, Webinar registration
- Natural Disaster Protection Plan Director James Saavdra and Director of Delivery Operations Zeina Randall, both with NV Energy, will discuss how NV Energy is working with customers and partners using innovative strategies to reduce the risk of wildfire to Nevadans.
Wildfire smoke and health, July 8, 11:30– 1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Meteorologist and Public Information Officer Chris Smallcomb, from the National Weather Service – Reno office, will discuss smoke forecasting and models used to predict smoke. Air Quality Specialist Brendan Schnieder, with the Washoe County Health District’s Air Quality Management Division, will discuss wildfire smoke and health impacts.
Home hardening Q&A, Aug. 12, 11:30– 1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Living With Fire will host a question-and-answer workshop with Steve Quarles, who is both University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor Emeritus and the retired Chief Scientist for Wildfire and Durability, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety Research Center. The session will focus on “home hardening,” defined as building or retrofitting homes to withstand wildfire. Watch a previous presentation on this topic online.
Reseeding and flood after wildfire, Sept. 9, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Forester Anna Higgins with the Nevada Division of Forestry, Ecologist Mark Freese with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, and Project Manager Danae Olson with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will discuss reseeding landscapes, and preparing for potential flood after wildfire.
Prescribed fire in Tahoe and Nevada, Oct. 14, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Fuels Management Officer Keegan Schafer with Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District and Forest Fuels and Vegetation Program Manager Duncan Leao with the U.S. Forest Service – Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest will discuss prescribed fire and projects in the Lake Tahoe Basin and Nevada.
The Salvage Science Series presents recent research on the effects of post-fire salvage logging and new tools for helping to plan salvage treatments.
This event is a three-stage process. First, watch the four pre-recorded webinars. Second, register for the May 6 panel discussion with the event speakers. Third, provide your questions for a specific speaker or more generally about salvage logging ahead of the discussion. These questions will help us frame the discussion and also help us plan a follow-up event on post-disturbance salvage treatment research and methods in the fall.
The event topics and speakers include:
Incorporating Woodpecker Habitat into Design of Post-Fire Salvage Logging- Recording
Vicki Saab – Research Wildlife Biologist, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Bozeman
Jonathan Dudley – Ecologist, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Boise
Post-Fire Salvage Logging Effects on Soils, Runoff, and Sediment Production in Western Watersheds- Recording
Joe Wagenbrenner – Research Hydrologist, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Arcata
Is That Tree Dead? Predicting tree death after fire for salvage decisions- Recording
Sharon Hood – Research Ecologist, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula
Understanding Post Wildfire Management Effects on Stand Structure and Woody Fuel Loadings- Recording
Morris Johnson – Research Fire Ecologist, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station/FERA, Seattle
This event is co-hosted by the USDA Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station and the Joint Fire Science Program‘s Northern Rockies Fire Science Network, Southern Rockies Fire Science Network, and Northwest Fire Science Consortium.
Summit registration and recordings.
Presentations will be April 14, 21, and 28 and May 5 and 12 at 10 am PDT.
Wildfire ravaged much of the western United States in 2020. Towns were destroyed, homes and businesses evacuated, forests incinerated, and lives lost. In Oregon, vast swaths of rural communities like Talent and Detroit were devastated by sweeping megafires. But every Oregonian was impacted by widespread evacuations, life-threatening smoke, damage to vineyards and other crops, and staggering costs siphoning critical tax dollars away from other essential public services. As with all matters related to climate change, the greatest impacts were on our most vulnerable communities: low-income families, communities of color, the sick, the elderly, and the young. These megafires also accelerated their climate effects, with carbon emissions from wildfires in the U.S. alone increasing 30% over the previous year. The 2020 season was the latest record-breaking year in the West, continuing a 20-year trend that is only worsening. But there is hope. As wildfire impacts broaden, so has the coalition of parties seeking solutions. Small town mayors and tribal leaders, experts in public health and social justice, CEOs and scientists are speaking up. World Forestry Center is convening representatives from this broadening coalition in a five-part virtual summit focused on the Oregon example.
Webinar recording.
Description: The Caples Fire, which began on September 30, 2019, burned 3,435 total acres (1,080-acre prescribed fire and 2,355-acres wildfire) within the Caples Creek Watershed Restoration Project planning area. This webinar will discuss the outcomes of the 2019 Caples Fire, fire effects on legacy trees, fire management take-home messages, volunteer efforts for restoration within the Caples watershed, and avian research within the Caples restoration area.
Presenters: Becky Estes (Central Sierra Province Ecologist, USDA Forest Service): Overview of the Caples Restoration Project
Lester Lubetkin (Co-Led Volunteer Effort, California Native Plant Society): Using Volunteers to Prepare Legacy Treesfor Prescribed Fire
Travis Thane (District Fire Management Officer, USDA Forest Service): Caples Fire Management and Facilitated Learning Analysis
Scott Dailey (Fire Ecologist, USDA Forest Service): Ecological Effects in the Caples Fire (First Order Fire Effects)
Durrell Kapan (Senior Research Fellow, California Academy of Sciences): Avian Response to Ecological Restoration of Resilience in the Caples Creek Watershed
Webinar recording.
Description: Wildfire is an annual threat for many rural communities in the Pacific Northwest. In some severe events, evacuation is one potential course of action to gain safety from an advancing wildfire. Since most evacuations occur in a personal vehicle along the surrounding road network, the quality of this network is a critical component of a community’s vulnerability to wildfire. This webinar details a regional-scale screening of wildfire evacuation vulnerability that was completed for 696 Oregon and Washington rural towns.
Speaker: Alex Dye, Oregon State University
Webinar recording.
In 2018, in response to calls from Congress to accelerate cross-boundary fire hazard reduction and improve forest resilience, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) published the Shared Stewardship Strategy (USFS 2018). The document emphasizes partnership with the states, Tribes, and collaborative partners in order to identify priority areas for management, coordinate work across jurisdictions, and leverage diverse capacities. Key aspects of the
Strategy are as follows: 1) working with states to set priorities, particularly through State Forest Action Plans (SFAPs), share in the ownership of risks presented by fire, and coordinate planning and action; 2) using a suite of scientific tools to model and map fire risk, largely through Scenario Investment Planning processes (Ager et al. 2019), to identify the most strategic places to invest in forest management; 3) utilizing tools such as the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA), stewardship contracts, and categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to facilitate and accelerate forest management work; and 4) pursuing other related goals, such as working with stakeholders to develop outcome-based performance indicators, streamline internal agency processes, and expand the use of risk management principles in fire management.
Webinar recording.
A conversation with Bea Day, Incident Commander, USDA Forest Service, Sara Sweeney, Superintendent, Mormon Lake Hotshots, USDA Forest Service and Stuart (Stu) Rodeffer, Logistics Section Chief, Portland NIMO Team, USDA Forest Service
Webinar recording.
Working Lands for Wildlife – the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s premier approach for conserving America’s working lands to benefit people, wildlife and rural communities – is excited to share information on two, action-based frameworks for conservation. The frameworks are the result of a multi-state planning effort and lay the foundation for the first biome-scale approach to wildlife conservation on working rangelands in grassland and sagebrush biomes. These efforts build on past achievements of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken and Sage Grouse Initiatives that together have partnered with more than 3,200 ranchers and conserved 10.3 million acres of working rangelands. The framework approach is designed to increase conservation and restoration of rangelands by addressing major threats to rangeland health and through the implementation of conservation measures that limit soil disturbance, support sustainable grazing management, promote the strategic use of prescribed fire and support native grassland species. Together, the frameworks leverage the power of voluntary, win-win conservation solutions to benefit people and wildlife from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
Webinar recording.
Description: The idea of using sensors to remotely measure things is not new. Aerial photos taken from hot air balloons were first proposed as a tool for mapping streets in the 1850s. In 1941, a US Forest Service ranger developed a technique for mapping fuels with aerial photos. Recent advances in remote sensing have dramatically increased the amount of spatial information that can be generated for a given area. This webinar will look at some of the ways the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team at the Seattle Fire Lab is using remote sensing to measure fuels and fire behavior. We’ll also discuss how this information can improve our capacity to model fires.
Presenter: Jim Cronan is a forester at the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab in Seattle, WA. He coordinates field data collection for scientists on the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team and has been involved with research on fuels and fire behavior for 20 years.
Webinar recordings.
The SCIENCEx webinar series brings together scientists and land management experts from across U.S. Forest Service research stations and beyond to explore the latest science and best practices for addressing large natural resource challenges across the country. These webinars will be primarily management focused, but with applicability for participants from across sectors. SCIENCEx will typically be organized as week-long webinar ‘blitzes’ around salient topics, allowing for deep-dives into subtopics or dynamics within specific geographies.