Southern Fire Portal

This position will be located within USDA Service Center in Kenedy, Texas and will provide conservation technical assistance and conservation program delivery to private landowners within their assigned districts and other priority areas as appropriate. The incumbent will work in a joint capacity with USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and other State and Federal partners to promote, accelerate enrollment, coordinate and implement the conservation provisions of the Federal Farm Bill and other wildlife related conservation programs such as the Grassland Restoration Incentive Program (GRIP). Activities will include program promotion (workshops and one on one meetings), contract coordination, conservation planning, conservation plan modification, site assessment and reporting. Incumbents will provide technical biological assistance for wildlife habitat enhancement techniques to private landowners and public organizations. Work with local chapters of Quail Forever (QF) and other local partners to increase habitat management efforts and participate in regional and statewide habitat meetings. Assist or coordinate activities and projects with other QF, NRCS, TPWD and Joint Venture staff. These positions will be employees of, and supervised by Pheasants Forever, Inc. & Quail Forever, with daily instruction and leadership provided by QF & NRCS.

The Forest Steward's Guild is looking to survey organizations that either currently practice prescribed fire or would like to in the future. This will help better understand the insurance market across the country and work with brokers and underwriters to produce a better product. They would like as broad of a sample as possible, spanning all types of fire practitioner backgrounds in order to best understand what is needed!

How you can help: take the survey and forward it to practitioners who might want insurance to implement prescribed burns or better prescribed fire insurance coverage than they currently have.

Prescribed fire is vital to ecosystems and is becoming widely regarded as a cost-effective management tool with major benefit. However, even the most carefully planned burn comes with some risk. This is an incredibly large barrier to implementation due to the lack of high-quality liability insurance available. This problem continues to grow as more agencies pull their prescribed fire insurance plans from the market.

The Forest Steward’s Guild has struggled with this exact barrier and has uncovered some currently available options and potential long-term solutions. For more information on the background of this project and FAQs, please visit https://foreststewardsguild.org/prescribed-fire-insurance

In August the Environmental Protection Agency released guidance on documenting particulate matter or ozone events influenced by prescribed fire or wildland fire. 

Nominations are now open for new members of the International Association of Wildland Fires' (IAWF) Board of Directors. Nominations will be accepted through September 30, 2019 and successful candidates will begin their 3-year term on January 1, 2020. Individuals meeting the requirements may self-nominate.

The proposal process for new CFLRP projects and extensions for existing ten-year projects will involve two tiers of review. This process applies to new projects as well as projects that have received funding for 10 years and are applying for a one-time extension for the shortest time practicable to complete implementation.

Tier 1 (Pre-Proposal):  Applicants provide a brief and high-level description of the proposed CFLRP project or project extension. The Regional Office will evaluate Tier 1 proposals using a common set of criteria and the Regional Forester will decide which projects should proceed with full Tier 2 proposal development.

Tier 2 (Full Proposal): Project extension and new project proposals selected in Tier 1 will proceed with detailed proposal development.  These proposals will be reviewed for completeness by the Regional Office, and if they meet all of the CFLRP eligibility criteria, they will be submitted to the CFLRP Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Committee for evaluation.

A Postdoctoral position is available to pursue research in fire science and ecology of the Everglades in the Plant Ecology Lab at Florida Atlantic University. Research will focus on modeling of fire behavior across varied wetland fuel complexes. This research is being done in cooperation with Everglades National Park, A.R.M. Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, and other regional agency and university collaborators. This is a one year (12 mo.) fully-funded position (salary and benefits) with potential for extension based on performance and availability of funds, and a preferred start date no later than January 2020 (negotiable). The selected candidate will be responsible for applying empirical field data (and participating in its collection) to predictive fire behavior models to assess impacts of vegetation transitions and inform land management decisions, and will lead or contribute to product development (reports, publications, presentations) and be provided with opportunities for professional development through workshop/technical meeting/conference attendance and the pursuit of additional research questions when possible. The position is located on the FAU campus in Davie, Florida.

AFE is holding a photo contest in conjunction with the 2019 Fire Congress. Winning photos will be showcased throughout the Fire Congress and in future AFE materials (e.g., websites, publications, displays).

A team of judges will select an overall winner, runner up, and winners in 5 special categories: After the Fire, Animals and Fire, Fire in Motion, Fire Landscapes, People and Fire.

The Prescribed Fire Crew Manager coordinates day-to-day activities of the prescribed fire crew and participates in wildland fire operations which include ignition, control, mop-up, suppression, monitoring, etc. All TNC staff actively participating on a prescribed burn must be qualified as a FFT2. The Prescribed Fire Crew Manager will participate in preparing fire lines, maintaining equipment, post-burn monitoring and other tasks. May perform other preserve management duties when conditions are not conducive to prescribed fire.

The Burn Crew Member will participate in preparing fire lines, maintaining equipment, post-burn monitoring and other tasks. As part of the BCM’s ongoing professional development, they will be responsible for keeping abreast of new burn techniques and equipment to enhance skills and maintain/grow professional fire certification credentials.  In addition, they shall work to build and maintain relationships in the professional fire community and in the local community where the Conservancy works. This may include participation in wild land fire suppression activities in partnership with other non-profits, local fire departments, and local, state and federal agencies, either as a TNC employee, or as a volunteer or short-term employee of the partner entity (such as an administratively determined, short term federal employee).

The Assistant Burn Crew Manager supports coordination of the day-to-day activities of the prescribed fire crew and participates in wildland fire operations which include ignition, control, mop-up, suppression, monitoring, etc. All TNC staff actively participating on a prescribed burn must be qualified as a FFT2. The Assistant Burn Crew Manager will participate in preparing fire lines, maintaining equipment, post-burn monitoring and other tasks. May perform other preserve management duties when conditions are not conducive to prescribed fire.

This incumbent leads a small crew in the collection and processing of data for scientific research conducted by the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team. There are multiple existing projects for field data collection. One project will focus on three-dimensional characterization of wildland fuels in multiple locations across the country, including the Rocky Mountain region and the south eastern United States. Another project will focus on pre and post-fire fuels inventories in prescribed burn units in central Utah. The aim of a third project will be to characterize fuels in grasslands in the south sound region of Washington.  These data will be used to assess fuel consumption evaluate the overall predictive capability of fuel consumption and fire behavior models. Plot data collection includes tree measurements, vegetation measurements and identification, and above and below-ground fuel quantification and classification. There will likely be opportunities to participate in other fire research projects throughout the season.

If you haven't had a chance to submit your oral presentation or fire circle abstract for the 8th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress, you still have time to do so! They are extending the deadline to accommodate summer schedules and those in the field. See the link below for details and submit your abstracts no later than Thursday, August 15.

Abstracts for poster presentations and attached meetings will be accepted until August 30, with no extensions.

What is mentoring?

The first mentioning of the word “mentor” goes back to an ancient Greek story about a young child called Telemachus who grew under the supervision of an old trusted friend of his father’s named Mentor. Since then, the name of this character started being used as a common term for “trusted tutor”.

Today, we use the word “mentor” for anyone who makes a positive, guiding influence on another person’s life. ‘Mentoring’ is the process of direct transfer of experience and knowledge from one person to another.

IAWF’s Approach:

The IAWF will have an open period for applications two times per year. After the applications are received and reviewed, we will match the mentors and mentees based on interests and geographic location. IAWF encourages both face to face mentoring and online remote mentoring, depending on the location of the participants. Both parties will need to mutually commit to six months. We will provide you with resources, i.e. checklists, agreements, suggestions, etc.

If you manage prescribed burns on Longleaf Pine units, we would appreciate your insights into the factors that influence burning practices.

We, myself and colleagues at the University of South Carolina, will use your responses to better understand the combinations of decision-making criteria and constraints to the use of prescribed burning in LLP management and concerns about future pressures on the use of fire across the LLP range. We will share the report with the Southern Fire Exchange, Tall Timbers Research Center, SERPASS and others interested in forest management. This survey is less than 10 minutes long and all responses are anonymous.

The Restoration Technician performs land management and restoration activities in the longleaf pine community and embedded isolated wetlands.  They remove exotic species, participate in prescribed fire program, assist in forestry field data collection, assist with restoration contract management and oversight, and conduct rare species monitoring.  You will assist with fleet, equipment and tool maintenance.  The Restoration Technician will maintain records using a database or PC.

Tall Timbers Wildland Fire Science Program has received Department of Defense funding from the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program to characterize multiscale feedbacks between forest structure, fire behavior and fire effects. This work seeks to advance more mechanistic predictions of fire effects through the application and advancement of coupled fire-atmospheric modeling to empirical study of surface fire regimes. The project is field-intensive and includes intensive fire-line experimentation campaigns using a variety of spatial and temporal monitoring techniques. This post-doctoral fellowship has up to 3.5 years of funding to lead integration efforts of multidisciplinary empirical fire behavior and forest measurements. The position will oversee data management, analysis, and data integration of 3D fuel characterization, fire behavior, fire effects, and 3D flows. The position will also facilitate the transfer of pre- and post-burn datasets to fire behavior modeling teams at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Colorado State University. The incumbent will play a key role in advancing our understanding of heat transfer to vegetation during fire and in improving post fire effects prediction. Primary duties are to assist the Wildland Fire Scientist and project collaborators with implementation of the study plan, help supervise field data acquisition, facilitate data transfer among participating organizations, and lead spatially explicit analysis of energy transfer and resulting fire effects. Other duties range from publication writing and preparation for submission to peer-reviewed journals, administering project management software, budget reporting, and student advisement.

It's time for the 2019 award nominations!

The Association for Fire Ecology (AFE) is accepting nominations for 2019 Lifetime Achievement Awards and Student Excellence Awards. The awards will be presented at the 8th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress in Tucson, Arizona this November.

Lifetime Achievement Awards in Fire Ecology and Management

These awards are presented to individuals who have made a significant contribution to fire ecology and management, and who have inspired and mentored a generation of fire ecologists. Their contributions may be in research, management, teaching, service, outreach, or a combination of these areas. Lifetime Achievement Awards are given in three categories:

• Biswell Award: Awarded to individuals who primarily work in ecosystems found in western United States or in similar ecosystems internationally. This award is named after Harold Biswell, longtime faculty member at the University of California-Berkeley.
• Stoddard Award: Awarded to individuals who primarily work in ecosystems found in the eastern United States or in similar ecosystems internationally. This award is named after the long-time prescribed fire advocate for longleaf pine management Herbert Stoddard, Sr.
• Wright Award: For those who primarily work in grasslands and shrublands in the United States and internationally. This award is named after Henry Wright of Texas Tech University.

Student Association for Fire Ecology (SAFE) Student Excellence Awards

These awards are given to students who are active members of recognized SAFE chapters and who demonstrate superior academic achievement and involvement in fire related research and activities. AFE presents two awards to students each year:

• Edward Komarek, Sr. Graduate Student Excellence Award: Named after Edward Komerek Sr. (1908-1995), one of the renowned “fathers of fire ecology.”
• Harold Weaver Undergraduate Student Excellence Award: Named after Harold Weaver (1903–1983), a pioneer in the field of fire ecology and ecosystem management.

Any active member of AFE or SAFE can submit a nomination for an AFE Award.

Nominations for 2019 awards are due August 15, 2019; awards will be presented at the 8th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress in Tucson, AZ this November.

The Association for Fire Ecology (AFE) has been awarded the privilege of administering the distribution of the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) TREE grant, which is designed to help graduate students travel to present at conferences, symposia, and workshops related to wildland fire science and management.

All registered graduate students in good academic standing in a field related to wildland fire science, ecology, or management in the U.S. are eligible to apply for grants. Depending on costs and the number of applicants, grants may fund all or a portion of estimated travel expenses including transportation, lodging, registration fees, and presentation preparation costs, where applicable. Funds cannot be used for food and incidentals, student stipends, direct research costs, or faculty research/administration costs. Grants will be paid as reimbursements for submitted receipts. 

Grants are limited and competitively awarded, and can only be awarded to current graduate students in the U.S. who are presenting the results of their fire-related research. This grant is for students without other Joint Fire Science Program support.