Beneficial Fire summit
December 7-11, 2026 - San Diego, California
The Beneficial Fire Summit will be held December 7-11, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa and Marina in San Diego, California. This event aims to bring together practitioners, researchers, community members, Tribes, agencies, NGOs, PBAs, and others to celebrate recent progress, share insights and ideas, and advance our collective work in beneficial fire. The program will focus on all three components of beneficial fire—prescribed fire, cultural fire, and managed wildfire—in California and across the West. This won’t be a typical conference! We hope to create an engaging, productive space, with workshops, field tours, focused sessions, and plenty of time for networking and connection.
This event is a collaboration with the Association for Fire Ecology, UC ANR Fire Network, California Fire Science Consortium, Northern California Prescribed Fire Council, Tall Timbers Research Station, and University of Nevada Extension/Living With Fire.
Schedule
Monday, December 7: Cooperator meetings, field trips, workshops, and welcome reception
Tuesday, December 8 - Thursday, December 10: Keynote plenary sessions and concurrent sessions, with each day being centered around a theme
Tuesday: Cultural Fire and Local Connections
Wednesday: Managed Wildfire and Cross-Border Connections
Thursday: Policy and Moving Forward
Friday, December 11: Field trips, workshops, and Statewide California PBA Meeting
Registration
Registration is now open! Registration rates include a discount for Association for Fire Ecology (AFE) members, one day only registrations, a sliding fee rate, and a volunteer rate. AFE is offering 15 registration scholarships intended to help those who need financial assistance to attend the event, and travel support for Indigenous participants may be available through the Indigenous Stewardship Network. Click here to learn more about registration!
Sponsors and Exhibitors
We are grateful for our event sponsors and exhibitors! We would like to give a special thank you to our Platinum Sponsor, CAL FIRE, our Gold Sponsor, UC ANR Fire Network, and our Silver Sponsors, California Fire Science Consortium, Indigenous Stewardship Network, and Tall Timbers. Click here to view the full list of Beneficial Fire Summit sponsors and exhibitors.
We welcome additional sponsors and exhibitors! Click here to learn more about supporting this event, and make the most out of this opportunity to network with the wildland fire community and showcase your agency, business, or organization by committing today.
