Fire Knowledge at Your Fingertips
The International Association of Wildland Fire recently jumped into two brand-new aspects of the electronic communication age, allowing us to share more wildland fire information with a greater segment of our world community. As with any leap forward, you sometimes wonder where you might land, but so far these look like good moves. With your suggestions and comments, we will continue to evaluate if these are valuable additions and if they meet your needs.
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We recently held our first Webinar in conjunction with the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a Webinar is a mini-conference attended via computer instead of by traveling to some distant location. You listen to the presenters in real time by phone or headset, and you watch their presentations and videos on your monitor. Although some businesses charge hefty registration fees in exchange for access to this form of knowledge, ours was a free event.
We selected five presenters from around the world to discuss their views of Australia's "Prepare, Stay and Defend, or Go Early" program, which teaches residents living in wildland fire-prone areas how to prepare their property to mitigate fire threat, how to make informed decisions to evacuate early if they are not comfortable defending the property, and how to defend their property if they decide to stay on as a fire approaches. This program has come under assault from some quarters following the fires in Victoria last February. Because the pros and cons of the concept are being evaluated for use in wildland fire-prone landscapes around the world, we thought this to be a vibrant topic to have as our first Webinar. I am pleased to report we had a great audience turnout from around the world, especially the United States, Australia and Canada. There were even reports of group audiences watching on large screens at several centralized locations.
I have to admit that, despite numerous test sessions, we experienced some minor difficulties in successfully concluding the Webinar, but these didn't affect the program and its importance - it's all part of the learning process of something new and exciting. Other problems in producing a global Webinar will be impossible to overcome, such as time zones! Our Webinar was recorded and is now online for you to freely view and listen to again or for the first time. We also have developed a Webinar discussion forum where you can post moderated thoughts on the topic addressed or what you think of the Webinar process in general. Links for these follow-up features are in this issue's IAWF News.
Our second new venture is offering our members free online access to the eight issues per year of the International Journal of Wildland Fire, the only peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to the wildland fire sciences. Previously, IAWF members could purchase discounted print or online subscriptions, but a recently renegotiated contract with the publisher now allows free online access to our members via the IAWF Web site. Those who still want to receive the hard-copy version will have to pay for that service. Unfortunately, printing and shipping remain significant costs to producing any paper publication.
I believe this is a significant step toward bringing more science-based fire management knowledge to on-the-ground users around the world, especially to those who might not have been able to budget for the Journal or whose travel distances to an institution with a library are too great. The goal is more readers, better management and safer working conditions!
International Assn. of Wildland Fire
3416 Primm Ln.
Birmingham, AL 35216
ph: 205-824-7614
iawf@iawfonline.org
To join the IAWF, visit www.iawfonline.org
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Wildfire Magazine
Attn: Kevin Daniels
kevindaniels@earthlink.net
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