Plenaries
Tuesday Plenary Speakers
Welcome
Dr. Brian Oswald - Regents Professor, Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, Stephen F. Austin State University; President, Association for Fire Ecology
Dr. Sarah McCaffrey - USFS Northern Research Station
The public and wildfire: conventional wisdom versus reality
Colleen Morton Busch - Author of Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire
The fire-adapted landscape and the fire-adapted mind: living and practicing with fire.
Wednesday Plenary Speakers
Announcements and Welcome
Dr. Neil Sugihara - 5th Fire Congress Steering Committee Co-Chair
Dr. Monica Turner - University of Wisconsin, Madison
Climate Change May Produce Novel Climate-Fire-Vegetation Relationships in Greater Yellowstone During the Twentyfirst Century
Dr. Pete Fulé - Northern Arizona University
Systematic Reviews, “Studies of Studies” to Integrate Scientific Information
Thursday Plenary Speakers
Announcements and Welcome
Dr. Morris Johnson - 5th Fire Congress Program Committee
Dr. Hal Salwasser - Professor of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University
Where Are We Going and Will We Like It When We Get There?
Dr. Scott Stephens - University of California, Berkeley
Forest Fuel Reduction Treatments in the United States: Is There Any Evidence of Ecological Harm?
Friday Closing Plenary Speakers
The Future of Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy
Session Organizers: Robin Wills and Melanie Miller
Steve Pyne – Historian, Arizona State University
Historical perspective on policy development
Matt Rollins - Wildland Fire Science Coordinator, U.S. Geological Survey
2012 Whitewater-Baldy Fire, Gila Wilderness: The influence of frequent previous fire occurrence on large fire management
James Douglas - Senior Advisor, Public Safety, Resource Protection, Emergency Services, US DOI
DOI strategy for policy implementation
Joe Stutler - Western Governer’s Association
TBA
Tom Nichols - Director of Fire and Aviation, NPS
Yet another version of federal fire policy: does it matter?
Craig Letz - Fire Management Officer, COFMS
A local perspective on fire policy implementation in Central Oregon
Abstract:
The history of fire management in the United States is documented through a series of revisions and adaptations to Federal policy. Often associated with significant events, changes in Federal fire policy reflect our efforts to more efficiently manage fires as both an ecological and social process. The 2009 guidance for implementation of Federal fire policy attempts to increase incident decision space and provide both line officers and incident commanders with an enhanced set of management tools. This new guidance addresses a growing recognition that our use of prescribed fire and fuels management to reduce the impacts of wildfires on local communities and increase forest health has largely failed. A greater reliance on wildland fires to achieve land management objectives and a reduction in unnecessary risk to firefighters are targeted goals of the policy guidance.
Full maturation of the 2009 policy guidance has yet to be achieved and rigorous testing on complex incidents is still needed. The next several fire seasons could see an implementation of the 2009 policy guidance on an increasing number of wildland fire events. This session will address the history of policy development and investigate how the Federal agencies have arrived at the current approach to managing wildland fire and fuels. Speakers will also describe the future of policy implementation, while identifying potential impediments and suggested solutions. Contemporary case studies will further examine the challenges of policy implementation in landscapes with a range of past fire histories.
