2017 Fire Congress Presentations

Video recordings of all the 2017 Fire Congress plenary session presentations and more than 35 presentations from 4 special sessions are available!

The presentations below were recorded at the 7th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress, which was held in Orlando, Florida, November 28-December 2, 2017. This conference was hosted by the Association for Fire Ecology, in cooperation with the Southern Fire Exchange. Videos were recorded and produced by UF/IFAS Communications, with support from UF/IFAS Extension. Thanks to the presenters and our partners for making this excellent resource available!

Plenary Presentations

Opening Plenary: A 20-Year Reflection on Fire Ecology and Management

• Welcome to Florida and the Culture of Fire (Jim Karels, Florida Forest Service)

• The Antiquity of Fire as an Ecological-Evolutionary Force in Florida and the Southeastern Coastal Plain (Reed Noss, University of Central Florida)

• Fire Science’s American Century: A Hundred Years of Wildland Fire Research in the United States (Stephen Pyne, Arizona State University)

• Reflections on Fire Ecology and the Association for Fire Ecology over the Past 20 Years (Neil Sugihara, Northern Arizona University and Jan van Wagtendonk, National Park Service)    

• The Joint Fire Science Program: 19 Years of Research Supporting Sound Decisions (Nate Benson, National Park Service)
  
  

Fire AFEx Talks

• Maintaining the Air We Breathe: Why We Need to Understand Long-Term Fire-Feedbacks to the Earth System in Order to Manage our Future (Claire Belcher, University of Exeter)

• Building a Fire Program That Sustains Ecosystems: Reflections on Twenty Years of Building a Fire Program in Florida (Steve R. Miller, St. Johns River Water Management District, Florida) 

• Reform Fire and Forest Policy to Emphasize Resilient Forests Long Term (Scott Stephens, University of California, Berkeley) 

• Confessions of a Pyromantic, or How I Learned to Stop Warring and Love Wild Fire (Tim Ingalsbee, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology, FUSEE)

• Developing Prescribed Fire and Improving the Practice: Meeting Fire Challenges of the Future (Morgan Varner, US Forest Service) 

• Burn Severity: Where, Why, So What? (Penny Morgan, University of Idaho)

• Wave of Fire: The Historical Signal of New World Colonization and Settlement (Michael Stambaugh, University of Missouri) 

• Fire Narratives: Are Any Accurate? (Sarah McCaffrey, US Forest Service)

• Fire-Ties That Bind: The Rekindling of Prescribed Fire Culture in North America (Johnny Stowe, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources)
  
  

Closing Plenary: A Look into the Future of Fire Ecology and Management

• Scanning the Horizon for the Future of Wildland Fire (David Bengston, US Forest Service)

• Using Fire Ecology in European and South American Landscapes (Marc Castellnou, University of Lleida, Spain)

• Fire Research in an Uncertain Future: Some Inconvenient Truths (Kevin Hiers, Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy)

• Fire Ecology 2.0 (Leda Kobziar, University of Idaho)

• Passing of the Presidential Torch and Closing Remarks (Chris Dicus, California Polytechnic State University) 

Special Session Presentations

The Southern Appalachian Wildfires of 2016

• The Southern Appalachian Wildfire Outbreak of Fall 2016: Background and Research Response (Joe O’Brien, US Forest Service)

• Numerical Weather Simulations during the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 Fire (Marcus Williams, US Forest Service)   

• Harbingers of Chimney Tops 2: Ancient Fires in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Chris Underwood, University of Wisconsin, Platteville)   

• Relevance of Fire History Research: Understanding Wildfire Risk in the Modern Wildland-Urban Interface (Henri Grissino-Mayer, University of Tennessee) 

• The Environmental Impacts of the 2016 Rough Ridge Fire (Yongqioang Liu, US Forest Service)   

• Fuel and Emission Properties of the 2016 Rough Ridge Fire (Fengjun Zhao, US Forest Service)   

• The Historical Context of the 2016 Appalachian Fires (Charles Lafon, Texas A&M University) 

• Landscape-Scale Patterns of Burn Severity of a Regional Fire Episode in the Southern Appalachian Mountains (Matthew Reilly, Humboldt State University) 

• Early Measurements of Fire Effects After the 2016 Southern Appalachian Fires (Louise Loudermilk, US Forest Service)     

• Does Adaptation to Fire Pre-Dispose Trees to Post-Fire Mortality? (Dana Carpenter, University of Georgia, Athens)   

• Earthworms and the 2016 Appalachian Fires (Mac Callaham, US Forest Service)     

Prescribed Burn Associations: Landowners Effectively Applying Fire to the Land

• Prescribed Fire Associations: Landowners Effectively Applying Fire to the Land (John Weir, Oklahoma State University) 

• Lessons Learned: Starting a Prescribed Fire Association in the Southeastern United States (Jesse Wimberley, Sandhills Area Land Trust) 

• Recipe for a Prescribed Burn Association: Just Add Fire (Carl Bunch, North Central Range Improvement Association)  

• Available Opportunities to Help Form and Maintain Prescribed Burn Associations (Jennifer Fawcett, North Carolina State University) 

• The Future of Prescribed Fire Associations (Morgan Russell, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service) 
  
  

Exploring Past and Future Roles of the Cooperative Extension Service in US Fire Education

• The 1998 Florida Extension Fire Experience: Are the Lessons Learned Lost? (Sharon Gamble, University of Florida) 

• Communicating Fire Science to Private Landowners and the Public: Extension's Role in the Southeastern United States (Holly Campbell, Southern Regional Extension Forestry) 

• Fire-related Training and Educational opportunities for Cooperative Extension and Other Educators (Jennifer Fawcett, North Carolina State University) 

• Citizen Fire Academy Extension Training (Kara Baylog, Oregon State University) 

• Cooperative Extension's Next Great Role in Fire Outreach (Alan Long, Southern Fire Exchange)
  
  

Prescribed Fire Science: An Interdisciplinary Focus on Fire We Use

• Prescribed Fire Science: What It Is and Why It Matters (Morgan Varner, US Forest Service)

• Understanding Boundary Layers in Prescribed Fire Science and Application (Kara Yedinak, University of Washington)

• Ecologically Relevant Measurements of Fire (Joe O'Brien, US Forest Service)

• Ecological Heterogeneity (Kevin Robertson, Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy)

• A New Look at Backing Fire Behavior and Fire Effects (Nicholas Skowronski, US Forest Service)

• The Role of Managed Fire for Stabilizing Forest Carbon (Matthew Hurteau, University of New Mexico)

• Understanding Mechanisms of Biodiversity: A Fire Effects Perspective (Louise Loudermilk, US Forest Service)

• On the Road to 'Usable" Modeling Tools for Prescribed Fire (Rod Linn, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

• Challenges with Modeling Fires in Marginal Conditions (Rod Linn, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

• Guidance for Developing Rx in an Increasingly Complex Fire Environment (Ben Hornsby, US Forest Service)

• Using LiDAR and 3D Simulations to Develop Fuel Beds for Next Generation Fire Models (Eric Rowell, FireCenter, University of Montana)

• Using Unmanned Aerial Systems for Monitoring Prescribed Fire (Valentijn Hoff, FireCenter, University of Montana)

• Southern Fire Exchange: Bridging Natural Resource Management and Fire Science (David Godwin, Southern Fire Exchange)

• The Prescribed Fire Consortium: Research Solutions for Fire We Use (Kevin Hiers, Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy)

• Case Studies of Managers and Scientists on Fire Science: the Need for Strong Cooperation (Brett Williams, Eglin Air Force Base)

Workshop Presentation and Activities 

FireWorks Educational Program with Short Activities Demonstration (Ilana Abrahamson, US Forest Service)