Transcript
About a year and a half ago, the state forester from the Natural Resources Conservation Service approached extension and asked us if we could provide prescribed fire awareness training. That's something that he had to send his staff to Texas to get because there wasn't an opportunity here in Oregon for that type of training. So in partnership with the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Prescribed Fire Council and the Forest Service and the NRCS, we got together to provide fire awareness education and training event.
Prescribed fire is the manipulation of vegetation using controlled live fire. The purpose of prescribed burning is to change the conditions on the landscape. Purposes vary but the activity is fairly similar in all cases. It involves the establishment of a control line and then the introduction of fire using various pieces of equipment in order to keep fire where we wanted and then to use it in ways that produce the kind of results that we're looking for.
So we've had this really awesome opportunity to work with our partners from across the state to really make a big difference in providing some more tools in the tool belt for landowners and our partners to implement prescribed burning on the ground.
The use of prescribed fire is a critical tool in both range and forest land management. The prescribed fire training that we're going through this week gives our planners with the NRCS the entry level to be able to work with private landowners and partners alike to start applying more prescribed fire across the landscape for multiple resource benefits. One of the other really critical elements that we gain out of this class is that our practitioners that work with landowners on a day-to-day basis can now transfer this education to them and make them feel more comfortable in applying fire to the landscape.
This is a training that I really need. I'm a conservation professional and I've been working with landowners for a long time and I'm really learning a lot and walking away with information I didn't have in the past.
The impact of this training relates to the impact of the fire program in general which is that we're really trying to transform landscapes and communities so that they're more ready to have wildfire and so that we're all more ready to live with wildfire. Prescribed fires a huge tool for getting us there.
The use of prescribed fire is a critical tool in both range and forest land management. OSU Extension and partners got together to provide prescribed burning awareness, education and training. The prescribed fire training gives agencies and organizations information and tools to work with private landowners and partners alike to start applying more prescribed fire across the landscape for multiple resource benefits.
