The Association for Fire Ecology

Volume 5, Issue 3 is now available

This issue focuses on the fire history of species and regions of California for which little previous literature exists.  Three articles present information about Jeffrey pine stands on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, and one reports on ponderosa pine stands in the North Coast Ranges. McNab cypress fire histories are presented for the first time as are histories for bigcone Douglas-fir in southern California.  The latter article sheds light on what fire regimes might have been in chaparral stands that surround the bigcone Douglas-firs.   Finally, a complete history spanning nearly 3,000 years of the Giant Forest grove of giant sequoias in Sequoia National Park is presented.

With this issue, we have assigned Digital Object Identifiers (doi) to each article as well as to all previous articles published in Fire Ecology.  These identifiers will allow for easy access to all of our articles and will insure that they are properly indexed by the citation indexing services.  Currently, in addition to citations in Fire Ecology itself, ten other journals have cited our articles.  You are encouraged to download articles, cite them, and, of course, submit new articles for consideration.

Board Elects New Members

The AFE Board has added three new members for the start of the 2010 year.  They are Micah-John Beierle, a graduate student at Texas Tech University,  Bob Keane, a research ecologist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and Dan Perrakis, a fire ecologist at Western and Northern Service Center for Parks Canada.  Visit our about us section to view the full Board.

AFE Releases Carbon Position

AFE’s position paper on the role of fire in managing long-term carbon stores was created in response to President Obama’s Executive Order (No. 13514: “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance") issued on October 5, 2009. This executive order mandated all federal agencies to develop plans within 180 days that “consider and account for sequestration and emissions of greenhouse gases resulting from Federal land management practices.” AFE Board members were concerned that policies intended to minimize carbon emissions from forests might mistakenly propose fire exclusion by further restricting prescribed fire and aggressively suppressing all wildfires. The short time frame and sense of urgency to get fire ecology perspectives into the hands of policymakers prompted the AFE Board of Directors to draft a position paper in time for AFE general members to discuss and ratify it at the Fourth International Fire Ecology and Management Congress meeting in Savannah in early December.

The position paper was drafted by a committee of four AFE Board members (Crystal Kolden, Scott Stephens, Paul Hessburg, and Timothy Ingalsbee), then sent to a select group of issue experts who peer-reviewed the draft. Their comments were incorporated into a second draft that was posted on the member’s section of the AFE website for further review and comment. During the Fire Congress, Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the keynote speaker at the awards banquet, gave a passionate endorsement of the position paper and urged us to promptly get it into the hands of policymakers. The next evening, the paper was unanimously endorsed and ratified at the annual members meeting. AFE now intends to send copies to President Obama and other Administration officials and Congressional leaders. AFE also intends to develop a longer, more comprehensive paper on the issue of fire management and carbon accounting systems for publication in an upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed AFE journal, Fire Ecology.

Members may leave comments about the Carbon Paper in the AFE Forum Carbon Paper Topic.

Coming Soon... Wildland Fire Certification Program

The complexity and importance of fire science and management is increasing worldwide. To meet the increasing demands for analysis, decision-making, and workforce development to satisfy the changing fire landscape, the Education Committee of the Association for Fire Ecology (AFE) has developed a professional certification program for fire ecologists, managers, and technicians, the Certified Wildland Fire Professional (WFP), Wildland Fire Manager (WFM), and Wildland Fire Ecologist (WFE) program.  The goals of the program are to formally identify fire careers as vital professions, to set standards for the preparation of future fire professionals, and to document the education, experience, and training qualifications of members of the fire ecology and management profession.

Look for more details about the certification process on our website when the program debuts at the beginning of 2010.

The Association for Fire Ecology was founded in 2001, and is a leading international professional organization dedicated to promoting the application of fire ecology through science and education.  Join AFE: Become a Member.