The purpose of this international scientific conference will be to bring scientists and managers together working on coupled natural-human systems (CNHS) in fire-prone ecosystems to present theories and findings on current work, discuss challenges and emerging issues, and to produce a synthesis of presentations and discussions that reflects the state of the knowledge in this field. The target audience is scientists and managers working on or cooperating with CNHS research projects in fire-prone ecosystems. The conference will address key scientific issues in the study of adaptation and feedbacks of social and ecological systems in fire-prone landscapes under climate change. It will also focus on ways of integrating social and ecological systems in agent-based models for planning and decision-making. The conference will advance the scientific basis of human adaptation in disturbance prone systems and identify scenarios of landscape change in different socio-ecological systems. The conference is planned for spring 2013 in the center of a fire-prone ecosystem - Bend, Oregon. Co-sponsors for the event include the National Science Foundation parent project, the USFS PNW Research Station, and Oregon State University. A synthesis publication on lessons and research challenges for fire prone landscapes as CNHS will be produced, and we will work with the Northwest Fire Science Consortium to disseminate conference highlights.