One Burn at a Time
Katie Greener started firefighting in Montana in 2009, but she only worked one fire that year. When she arrived in southeast Georgia for a class in prescribed burning this past winter, she hoped they'd start slowly. Instead, her squad burned a 240-acre unit in a short afternoon on her second day and continued burning for the next nine days, ultimately putting fire on 1,300 acres of forest, swamp and grassland.
Student initiated burning in fragile sand dune ecosystems for a state sandhill recovery grant.
|
On Greener's fifth day burning, she realized that the ignition pattern her crew was following into the unit's interior was wrong. The moment Greener discovered that she and her fellow drip-torch-carriers were putting fire behind (rather than in front of) them was when she realized she actually understood what she was doing. "Something just clicked," Greener says, "and I realized, 'Hey, I can do this.'"
For the past three years, University of Montana students like Greener have participated in the Prescribed Fire Practicum, a three-credit undergraduate/graduate course offered by the College of Forestry and Conservation. The practicum lets student firefighters learn to use prescribed fire by conducting burns with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and its partners in the southeastern United States. Students implement burn plans; experiment with lighting patterns; monitor fire behavior, weather and effects; map burn units; build firefighting organizations; and fill fire line leadership roles.
The land that students burn contains remnants of the longleaf pine forests that covered 90 million acres of North America in the 1700s. Today less than 3% of that forest remains. The longleaf pine forest hosts the most diverse array of species among forested ecosystems in North America, many of them threatened or endangered. The Nature Conservancy and others are trying to protect and restore longleaf pine forests, which need frequent, low-intensity fires to maintain function and diversity.
Chuck Martin, manager of The Nature Conservancy's Moody Forest Natural Area, notes that with the help of the University of Montana fire class, "we treat more acres with prescribed fire in two weeks than we could alone in several months. This goes a long way toward meeting our objectives for longleaf pine restoration burning on TNC and partner lands." The 4,400-acre Moody Forest, where students stay during the practicum, is located in the country's only known remaining old-growth, longleaf pine-blackjack oak forest and is home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and the federally threatened Eastern indigo snake.
Dr. Carl Seielstad, University of Montana professor, had seen how student firefighters struggle to gain meaningful field experiences early in their careers while juggling academic requirements. Drawing on examples from the Prescribed Fire Training Academy, the University of Idaho's Prescribed Burning Lab and smokejumper winter burning details, Seielstad developed the practicum to bridge that gap. In 2008, a member of the University of Montana Student Firefighter Association placed an inquiry on a firefighter listserv for a prescribed burn opportunity. Former TNC Fire Management Officer Matt Snider responded, and a UM-TNC partnership was born.
Students who participate in the practicum have varying levels of experience as wildland firefighters, but all are studying forestry or natural resource management in the College of Forestry and Conservation. Some students are smokejumpers who have extensive knowledge and skills, while others are new firefighters. They take turns acting as crew boss; managing engines, ATVs and ignition equipment; and producing maps and documentation for each operation. This means that a professor might fill water in an engine while a student with a semester or less of GIS training develops a daily burn map. By taking on new roles and responsibilities, students gain experience they might not get until much later in their fire careers.
Jon Holmes, a practicum participant in 2008, had worked on a Type 2 hand crew, on a helitack crew and as a hotshot before his Georgia trip. Despite this suppression experience, he had never managed a burn operation. Holmes noted the difference between the practicum and an agency training experience where there is "pressure to be flawless at your job even though there may never have been an opportunity to do it before." The practicum, he says, "puts people in situations they normally wouldn't have the privilege to, and the evaluation is on what you learn, instead of what you know."
Students also leave a familiar fire environment — most of them fight summer fires in the Northern Rockies — and enter a new ecosystem. Seielstad thinks this might be the most important learning experience.
"Learning a new forest and fuel type means the students have to think more carefully about the aspects of fire they might take for granted living and working in Montana," Seielstad says. "Things like fire behavior, weather and fuel types are all different in the Southeast, and cultural differences produce diverse management practices."
The students read scientific literature, landowner guides and management plans about longleaf pine ecosystems before their trip to Georgia, and they spend time in the field with TNC ecologists to learn more about restoration strategies and tactics. This ecological knowledge helps students clearly understand burn objectives. Working with a nonprofit conservation organization also introduces students to perspectives and techniques not common on federal and state-run fires back home.
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
