While the Joint Fire Science Program in the United States is slated to be defunded by the Administration in the current budget proposal for FY 2020, Canada intends to ramp up their program.

The Government of Canada has released the Blueprint for Wildland Fire Science in Canada (2019—2029).  Led by the Canadian Forest Service, the Blueprint provides a national consensus view of Canada’s key wildland fire research priorities over the next 10 years. It also makes 15 recommendations intended to guide science investments, attract new collaboration, and align national research efforts.  These recommendations are broadly focused on:

• Increasing national capacity for wildland fire research through new investments into academic programs, public sector science, and postsecondary networks;
• Recognizing Indigenous knowledge as an equal and complementary way of knowing wildland fire,  to inform future fire management policies and practices;
• Creating new knowledge exchange mechanisms to improve the way science and technology is shared, understood, and implemented;
• Creating new multidisciplinary, multi-partner, collaborative research opportunities; and
• Improving national governance and coordination of science activities through development of a national research agenda and the creation of a national coordinating committee.

You can download the Canadian Forest Service blueprint document here (8 mb).

April 8 is the last day to sign on to a letter of support for the Joint Fire Science Program in the United States.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to LM. Typos or errors, report them HERE.