Topic: Communicating about Fire

Over millennia, many indigenous and Tribal peoples in North America’s fire-prone ecosystems developed sophisticated relationships with wildland fire that continue today. This article introduces philosophical, conceptual, and operational approaches to working with American Indians through…

The USGS Wildland Fire Science Strategic Plan (hereafter, Strategic Plan) was developed by USGS fire scientists and executive leadership, and was informed by discussions with external stakeholders. The Strategic Plan is aligned with the needs of the fire science stakeholder community—fire, land…

This literature review synthesizes empirical research about wildland fire communication to provide practitioners, such as land managers, public health and safety officials, community groups, and others working with the public, evidence-based recommendations for communication work. Key findings…

Washington has more than 22 million acres of forestland. From the lush rainforests on our coasts, to the rugged sub-alpine forests along the Cascade Crest, to the pine-dominated hillsides surrounding the Columbia Plateau, forests are an integral part of our landscapes and communities, and they…

The Pacific Northwest and Pacific Southwest Regions land management of the USDA Forest Service are pleased to introduce the Bioregional Assessment of Northwest Forests. For the last several years, in both formal and informal settings, we heard from many stakeholders that our land management…

Congress created the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) in 1998 as a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to identify and fund the research needs of the fire management community. Since that time, the JFSP has provided leadership…

The Northwest Fire Science Consortium (Consortium) works to accelerate the awareness, understanding, and adoption of wildland fire science by connecting users in the Pacific Northwest with the most useful resources available. These efforts require an ongoing understanding of how users access…

Despite major advances in numerical weather prediction, few resources exist to forecast wildland fire danger conditions to support operational fire management decisions and community early-warning systems. Here we present the development and evaluation of a spatial fire danger index that can be…

The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) has guided the management of 17 federal forests in the US Pacific Northwest for the past 25 years. The existing management plans for these national forests – which were amended by the NWFP – are now being evaluated for revision under the US Forest Service's 2012…

This is the executive summary of a three-volume science synthesis that addresses various ecological and social concerns regarding management of federal forests encompassed by the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). Land managers with the U.S. Forest Service provided questions that helped guide…