Webinar January 11, 2022! ** Second webinar of their Fall Webinar Series **This webinar will be presented by Dr. Erica Smithwick, Penn State Hosted in partnership with the North Atlantic Fire Science ExchangeRegistration is required (link below)!!Webinar title: Firescapes of the mid-Atlantic: Challenges and opportunities for implementing prescribed burning as a land management strategy Date/time: January 11, 2022 at 1pm central timeThe Wildlife Society and The Society of American Foresters continuing education credits (1 hour Cat 1) approvedRegister here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEude-sqDktGtMwAMbdqMMMVNgX6m_bDMuGA unique Zoom Meeting link will be emailed to you. Enter the meeting room beginning at 12:45 pm (central time) on the day of the webinar.
Webinar abstract:Firescapes of the mid-Atlantic, U.S.A. are understudied relative to other ecosystems in the United States. Yet, they harbor high levels of wildland-urban interface, have a tight intermingling of land ownerships, and reflect substantial regional heterogeneity in burning histories and fire hazard. Moreover, mid-Atlantic fire practitioners increasingly seek guidance for understanding community perceptions of managed fire implementation to meet a variety of land management objectives including hazard reduction, restoration, and biodiversity. Here, I describe an interdisciplinary project using FVS modeling, post-fire observations, economic modeling, surveys, and focus groups to better understand the interactions between ecosystems’ need for fire, community perceptions, and management challenges. Our results highlight both barriers and opportunities for managed fire implementation in the region, identifying critical mismatches between ecosystems, communities, and managers. These include mismatches between ecologically desirable fire frequencies and agency planning horizons, scale mismatches that preclude regional-level coordination, community-manager variability in the perceived concerns and benefits, and mismatched integration of forest user benefits into fire planning. Collectively, these mismatches offer opportunities for better alignment of multi-scalar, multi-objective decision making in the context of landscape-level fire management. This webinar is brought to you by the Oak Woodlands & Forests Fire Science Consortium and is hosted in partnership with the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange
