2005 Harold Biswell Award 

DR. BRUCE M. KILGORE

During a long career in the National Park Service, Dr. Kilgore was an outstanding science and resource manager. He carried out early research in fire ecology and was a pioneer advocate of using prescribed burning as an essential tool in managing public rangeland and forests. He researched the role and effect of fire on red fir and giant sequoia at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and his scientific and popular publications contributed to public understanding of the importance of fire in park and wilderness ecosystems.

Dr. Kilgore's research on the effects of understory treatments on bird populations was the first to establish a relationship between those treatments and changes in bird guilds. He went on to conduct the research in giant sequoia forests necessary to establish the prescribed burning programs in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and in red fir forests and which formed the basis for the first wildland fire use program in the National Park Service.

After becoming the Associate Regional Director for Resource Management and Planning, Dr. Kilgore continued his influence on Service-wide and interagency fire issues. He selected fire ecologists to staff positions in parks in the region and served on interagency fire policy review panels. During a hiatus from his Service career, he conducted research for the USFS on the fire ecology of northern Rocky Mountain forest types.

Dr. Kilgore was a major influence in the Service's adoption of prescribed burning and he also influenced other federal, state, and tribal agencies to adopt burning programs. The combination of a solid science foundation with excellent collaborative efforts have made his contributions to fire science significant, not only regionally, but nationally and internationally as well.