Using escaped prescribed fire reviews to improve organizational learning

Results have been released for an evaluation of the review process for escaped prescribed fires to attempt to determine if reviews are contributing to or inhibiting achievement of organizational learning. The entire report is here, and below is a very brief summary provided by the Joint Fire Science Program:

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RESULTS: Based on conversations in a series of workshops and follow-up interviews, researchers identified several elements of the review process that best facilitate organizational learning:

Local Leadership: The local leader sets the tone for creating a learning environment in the unit. When an escape does occur, involving the local fire leadership in a discussion about the purpose and process of a review can dramatically improve the local learning environment.

Review Team: Review team members act as witnesses and facilitators to first help the local unit make sense of what they experienced. They do this by providing for psychological safety and by emphasizing listening without judgment.

Boundary Management: Boundaries for information that should be shared and not shared, and with whom, are continually identified and respected.

Transfer: The learning modalities need to simulate the spaces of action in which people actually work.

Follow Through: Just as a burn plan needs to account for mop-up and monitoring, so does the review of an escape prescribed fire need to provide for follow through to promote learning.

Time-lapse video of a prescribed fire in longleaf and slash pine


This is a time-lapse video (spanning over 2 hours) of a dormant season prescribed fire in a mixed longleaf pine / slash pine flatwoods stand in the University of Florida Austin Cary Forest near Gainesville, Florida. This particular stand within the forest is burned on an annual basis during the months of January and February to demonstrate the influence of burn season on vegetative composition, fuel characteristics, and fire behavior. The burn was conducted in January 2013 by Austin Cary Forest Staff along with University of Florida faculty, staff, and students from the 2013 Fire Ecology and Management class.

For more information about fire science and wildland fire management in the southern U.S., visit the Southern Fire Exchange (http://www.southernfireexchange.org/).

via @RMIMTTeamC & @FireScienceGOV

Explaining forest management in 100 seconds

Thin the Threat bumper sticker

This animated video explains forest management, prescribed burning, fire return interval, and fuel management in 100 seconds.

The video is very well done and gets its point across quite efficiently, however it may be obvious to some that it was produced by an organization like the Oregon Forest Resources Institute which represents forest producers, small woodland owners, forest sector employees, academia, and the general public. The group appears to be similar to the Idaho Forest Products Commission that came up with the “Thin the Threat” bumper sticker last year.Thin the Threat bumper sticker

via @FireAviationNPS

Video: using old burns to help manage new fires

The Southwest Fire Science Consortium has produced a 12-minute video about taking advantage of previously burned areas when managing new fires. Here is the
Consortium’s description of the video:

Over the past two decades the size of wildfires has dramatically increased across the Southwest. These large burned areas have become so common that newer wildfires are burning into and around them. Fire managers increasingly use these previous burns as treatments that either stop or slow fire spread. The interaction of past and current wildfires has important management and ecological consequences.

The video will be useful for anyone who is not aware that the spread of a wildland fire slows when it moves into a previously burned area, or an area with less fuel. The technical aspects of the video are excellent, including the editing, videography, and sound, while the appearance of the subject matter experts is similar to what we saw in another one produced by the Consortium about vegetation mastication.

Colorado: bills introduced about prescribed fire and fire prevention

Two bills have been introduced in the Colorado state Senate that could affect fire prevention and the management of prescribed fires. The bills were inspired by recommendations made by the Lower North Fork Wildfire Commission.

SB 13-082, Wildfire Matters Review Committee, establishes a permanent interim committee to study wildfire prevention and mitigation policy. The committee will work with the Department of Public Safety and the State Forest Service, and will be comprised of ten legislators.

SB 13-083, Prescribed Burn Program, requires the Division of Fire Prevention and Control to establish a prescribed burn program. The program must have specific rules and standards, and there must be policy to address an escaped prescribed burn. The rules will specify that a state certified burn manager, or a nationally qualified burn boss, manage any prescribed burn.

Mastication Treatments in Southwestern Forests

The Southwest Fire Science Consortium has produced a video that explains the advantages and disadvantages of masticating wildland vegetation, or fuels.

The video is very well planned and produced, cramming a great deal of information into an 11-minute presentation. The videography is first-rate, the speakers do an excellent job, and the sound, thanks to the use of a remote microphone, is high quality. My only suggestion for improving a very technical video like this is to ask the people that are representing their agency and presented as experts to wear their uniforms, and especially to ditch the coveralls and Hawaiian shirts. It could enhance the credibility and professionalism. Having worked for both the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, it is surprising how different the two agencies are about this. The USFS has virtually no policies that are enforced about how and when to wear their uniform in the field, while the NPS, at least in some parks, goes to the other extreme, even requiring ties for many of their employees as part of the winter uniform.

Is prescribed fire in chaparral “irrelevant”?

Prescribed fire near Pine Valley, California, 1987
Prescribed fire in chaparral, near Pine Valley, California, 1987. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

Some of the opinions of Jon Keeley, a fire ecologist with the U.S Geological Survey (USGS) at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, are again in the news. A web site called OurAmazingPlanet has quoted him in a lengthy article about prescribed fire, titled “Fighting Fires: You’re Doing It Wrong”. While admitting that prescribed fire in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park “is extremely necessary”, he goes on to say:

In most of Southern California, [prescribed fire] is completely irrelevant. There is overwhelming evidence we’ve never come anywhere close to excluding fire on this landscape [through prescribed fire].

Mr. Keeley believes that manipulating the vegetation in chaparral-covered areas by masticating and prescribed fire, replaces the native vegetation with invasive species like cheatgrass. He thinks that instead, we should concentrate on planning and reduce the number of people that are put at risk.

This is not the first time Wildfire Today has written about Mr. Keeley’s opinions. In 2009 we covered his research that indicates it is unlikely that changing the age class of chaparral can prevent large fires. The details are in his papers HERE and HERE, and in a brief article by John McKinney HERE.

Conventional wisdom was that younger chaparral, less than 20 years old, had fewer tons-per-acre of vegetation than older stands, and also had a much different live/dead ratio, with fewer dead stems and plants. Less flammable fuels (higher green content with higher fuel moistures) meant fires would spread more slowly and should be easier to suppress.

Totally preventing or excluding fires in chaparral will never be feasible, but… it is hard for me to give up the idea that creating a mosaic of chaparral age classes does not have a significant effect on fire size and resistance to control.

Another report about Lower North Fork Fire offers recommendations

Lower North Fork Fire
Lower North Fork Fire. Photo provided by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office

A special commission created by the Colorado General Assembly to investigate the Lower North Fork fire has released their report. The fire originated from an escaped prescribed fire southwest of Denver on March 26, 2012. It burned 4,140 acres and killed three local residents at their homes. The report offers a number of recommendations but did not place blame.

This is the second report about the fire. The first, released in April, 2012, was conducted by Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources. That 152-page report (a very large 11.8 MB file) only addressed the management of the prescribed fire, and did not cover the suppression of the wildfire, the three fatalities, or the controversial evacuation procedures during the wildfire.

The charter of the commission  which produced the second report was to investigate the following:

  • causes of the wildfire;
  • the impact of the wildfire on the affected community;
  • the loss of life and financial devastation incurred by the community;
  • the loss of confidence by the community in the response to the emergency by
  • governmental bodies at all levels; and
  • measures to prevent the occurrence of a similar tragedy

Their recommendations were on the following topics:

  1. Coordination among fire districts
  2. Raising the liability cap
  3. Wildland-urban interface and local land use egulations
  4. Funding for the federal FLAME Act (which is not fully funded by Congress)
  5. 911 capabilities
  6. A consistent revenue source for wildfire suppression
  7. Air emission permits
  8. Funding for the SWIFT Program

The Commission also recommends that four bills be introduced in the Colorado General Assembly:

  • Prescribed Burn Program in the Division of Fire Prevention and Control
  • Wildfire Matters Review Committee
  • Extend Wildfire Mitigation Financial Incentives
  • All-hazards Resource Mobilization and Reimbursement

You can read the entire report HERE.

 

Thanks go out to Gary