IAWF Board of Directors Representing the Membership

The International Association of Wildland Fire is again seeking nominations for its Board of Directors to replace members who will be retiring this year at the end of their term. Terms start at the beginning of 2011 and run for three years. For those interested in these working volunteer positions, information concerning responsibilities and an application are available at www.iawfonline.org. Applications should be submitted via e-mail no later than 5 p.m. PST, Nov. 15.

IAWF PUBLIC AFFAIRS POSITION SEARCH

The IAWF is seeking a qualified individual to fill a public affairs position. The PA is a part-time contract position with hourly salary. The PA serves as the IAWF's principal contact and initial spokesperson to the global media and public, in addition to fulfilling other duties as specified in the online announcement. Generally, the PA will work out of a home office, but some travel may be necessary. Knowledge of the IAWF, current wildland fire issues and policy, legislative processes, international media, techniques of news gathering and release including social media, and English language usage are important. Deadline for applications is midnight PST, Dec. 31. For more information on the position, visit www.iawfonline.org/blog/?p=327. The IAWF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS NEEDED FOR WILDFIRE

The Wildfire magazine Editorial Advisory Board is looking for individuals who have the ability to reach out to members of the wildland fire community for articles. Individuals from around the globe are encouraged to apply. The requirements include the ability to communicate in English and provide a minimum of three articles annually. Contributing editors will be recognized on the masthead of Wildfire magazine. Applications are available at www.iawfonline.org and are due by midnight PST, Nov. 30.

IAWF BOARD OF DIRECTORS REPRESENTING THE MEMBERSHIP

President Chuck Bushey of Billings, Montana, met with the membership at the recent AFAC 2010 conference in Darwin, Australia, and at the Wildland Fire Canada 2010 conference in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Bushey represented the IAWF at several community 1910 Fire Commemorative Events across northern Idaho and western Montana. He was present as both an “alumnus” and a representative of the IAWF at the 50th anniversary of the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana.

UPCOMING IAWF EVENTS

National Wildland Urban Interface Council Workshop, Nov. 3-4, Washington, D.C., hosted by the National Association of Home Builders and organized by the International Code Council. A coalition of organizations and agencies, including IAWF, will meet for the first time to work together on a collaborate approach to combat the loss of life and damage caused by wildland fire adjacent to urban locales. The formation of the NWUIC is a recommendation of the National Blue Ribbon Panel Report on WUI fire, of which IAWF was a member. For more information, see www.iccsafe.org/gr/NWUIC.

6th International Conference on Forest Fire Research, Nov. 15-18, 2010, Coimbra, Portugal. Look for IAWF and the International Journal of Wildland Fire (published by CSIRO for IAWF) at the conference. See www.adai.pt/icffr/2010.

11th Wildland Fire Safety Summit, “Promoting the Story of Wildland Fire Safety from the Local to the Global,” April 5-7, 2011, Missoula, Mont., at the Hilton Garden Inn. The Safety Summit is the premier international wildland fire safety event that provides a sustained emphasis on the critical topic of wildland fire safety. Since 1997, this has been the place for members of the international wildland fire community to focus on safety, discuss significant events and trends in safety, promote best practices in safety training and operations, reveal safety-related research findings, and explore new approaches to safety. This year's theme, “Promoting the Story of Wildland Fire Safety,” highlights the importance of story and narrative in safety training, operations, research and organizational learning. “From the local to the global” calls forth the story of safety from the entire spectrum of the global wildland fire community: from the individual, the crew, the incident, the local community, the agency, the region, the state, the nation, the continent, to the entire hemisphere. Keynote speakers will include Dave Thomas on storytelling and organizational learning and Rob Palmer on “golden hour” response. The opening keynote speaker will be Dr. Gordon Graham, internationally recognized expert on risk management, including firefighter safety and organizational performance. He also will conduct training workshops in conjunction with the Summit. Visit www.iawfonline.org/missoula2011 for more information.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WILDLAND FIRE

The most recent edition of the International Journal of Wildland Fire is issue 19, number 6. All IAWF members have free online access to all Journal abstracts and articles via the IAWF website. The Journal publishes new and significant papers that advance basic and applied research concerning wildland fire. It attracts papers on a broad range of wildland fire issues and takes an international perspective because wildland fire plays a major social, economic and ecological role around the globe.

This issue's feature paper is “Adoption and perceptions of shelter-in-place in California's Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection District” by Travis B. Paveglio, Matthew S. Carroll and Pamela J. Jakes. This article explores public and professional perception of emerging U.S. strategies for protecting local residents during wildland fire events. The authors focus on the social factors leading to implementation of one version of alternatives to evacuation — a broad category of strategies designed to allow residents to remain at home when a wildfire threatens their area.

This most recent issue includes the following research in addition to the featured paper:

“Building bridges to fight fire: the role of informal social interactions in six Colorado wildland-urban interface communities,” Hannah Brenkert-Smith
“Field estimation of ash and char colour-lightness using a standard grey scale,” David P. Roy, Luigi Boschetti, Stefan W. Maier and Alistair M.S. Smith
“Global assessment of the temporal reporting accuracy and precision of the MODIS burned area product,” Luigi Boschetti, David P. Roy, Christopher O. Justice and Louis Giglio
“Burn severity mapping using simulation modelling and satellite imagery,” Eva C. Karau and Robert E. Keane
“Integrating fuel treatment into ecosystem management: a proposed project planning process,” Keith D. Stockmann, Kevin D. Hyde, J. Greg Jones, Dan R. Loeffler and Robin P. Silverstein
“Prescribed burning of thinning slash in regrowth stands of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) following bauxite mining in southwest Australia,” Andrew H. Grigg, Melanie A. Norman and Carl D. Grant
“Minimal effectiveness of native and non-native seeding following three high-severity wildfires,” Ken A. Stella, Carolyn H. Sieg and Pete Z. Fulé
“Effect of heat shock on germination of 23 plant species in pine-oak and montane cloud forests in western Mexico,” Susana Zuloaga-Aguilar, Oscar Briones and Alma Orozco-Segovia
“Methods to determine the impact of rainfall on fuels and burned area in southern African savannas,” S. Archibald, A. Nickless, R.J. Scholes and R. Schulze
“Fuel loading and flammability in the Mediterranean Basin woody species with different post-fire regenerative strategies,” S. Saura-Mas, S. Paula, J.G. Pausas and F. Lloret
“Understory fire propagation and tree mortality on adjacent areas to an Amazonian deforestation fire,” J.A. Carvalho Jr., C.A. Gurgel Veras, E.C. Alvarado, D.V. Sandberg, S.J. Leite, R. Gielow, E.R.C. Rabelo and J.C. Santos
“Effect of drying temperature on fuel moisture content measurements,” Stuart Matthews