Andi Koonce dies

             

Andi Koonce

We are sorry to note the passing of Andi Koonce on July 24, 2010, after a long illness. Andi was instrumental in the early formation of the International Association of Wildland Fire, first by conceiving of a professional organization, and later by serving as one of the first members of our Board of Directors starting in 1991. She helped to formulate the idea of a high-quality, refereed scientific journal to help establish fire science as an international recognized discipline. And with the help of others, her energy soon resulted in the funding and development of what we now know as the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

Andi graduated in 1969 from Los Alamos High School in Los Alamos, New Mexico. She went on to earn a B.S. in political science at Arizona State University in 1973, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Oregon State University in 1981. Her areas of graduate study included forest science, forest ecology and forest pathology with Dr. Lew Roth (OSU) and Dr. Robert Martin (FS) advising her on her graduate research, which examined the interaction between fire and dwarf mistletoe in ponderosa pine. Upon graduation, Andi went on to teach at the National School of Forest Sciences in Honduras and directed a tree improvement program in tropical pines. When the Honduran school closed, she returned to the United States and joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point to teach forestry courses. While there in 1984, she established the Fire Science Center, which supported research and extension activities related to prescribed fire in the Midwest. In 1988 she left academia and joined forest service research as project leader of the Prescribed Fire Research Unit at the Forest Fire Laboratory in Riverside, California. This was a trail-blazing move for Andi as she became one of the first female U.S. Forest Service project leaders in fire research.

In addition to her research, Andi was always a strong supporter of efforts to improve and increase the roles of women in fire research. When the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station eliminated several lines of research due to funding reductions in 1996, Andi joined the fire and aviation management staff in the Forest Service's National Office. She provided expertise in fire planning and fuels in this capacity for several years before moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to work as a fire staff specialist in the Forest Service's Eastern Regional Office. In this capacity, she was able to provide technical expertise to the national forests in support of prescribed burning and fuels management in this 20-state area. After several years in Milwaukee, she returned to California where she was initially a forest pathologist on the San Bernardino National Forest and later oversaw the Forest Health Protection Program for the four national forests in Southern California. Andi always maintained her interest in tropical forestry, and her last research project involved fire damage in Caribbean pine plantations in Nicaragua.

Andi will be missed by many, and the IAWF offers our condolences to her family and co-workers.