Night burning in longleaf pine to restore habitat of the red-cockaded woodpecker on Sandy Island, SC with The Nature Conservancy-SC. March 2021.

Sugar pine snags at night, within a prescribed fire unit on the Stanislaus National Forest, California - October 2022. Long exposure captures the flight of embers.

After the 2019/20 Black Summer fires there was a super year of cicadas in south-eastern Australia. This was driven by substantial new growth stimulated by the fires and above-average rainfall.

October 17th, 2022. Temp 74F. RH 64.6% PIG 40%. Fire was brought to a 4 year old timber harvest. Single tree selection in redwood, doug fir, grand fir, tanoak, madrone forest. 80% course and find fuel consumption.

End of prescribed burn in Nittälven, Sweden, June 2023.

San Marino engine crew and REAF Dolan after saving a sequoia Tree, Windy Fire.

Morning after a prescribed burn in mixed-conifer forest on the Stanislaus National Forest, California - October 2022.

The Taylor Creek Fire burns a mountainside along the Rogue River in SW Oregon, July 2018.

Firefighters walking the road after strong winds caused the fire to jump the line. The fire would make a 10,000 acre run that day. Draw Fire, NV, 2017.

Likely Fire, shots conducting burn out operations.

An eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina) exploring a freshly burned habitat in the NJ Pine Barrens.

Patty Carrick (USFS fire practitioner from Hiawatha National Forest) ignites an evening prescribed fire as part of an effort to restore landscape scale fire to the Great Plains during the 2016 Loup TREX program in Nebraska.

A rare example of stand-replacing prescribed fire in the Western U.S. This operation was conducted on June 20th, 2019 on the Fishlake National Forest in Utah with the goal of restoring Aspen (Populus tremuloides) and the opportunity for multiple research groups to study stand-replacing fire in a controlled setting.

Covered by the first rain enriching the colors the fire behavior left behind in black, gold and green. Parker Ridge Fire near Bonners Ferry, ID 2015.

Black spruce (Picea mariana) sapling emerging from a hole made by a Whitespotted sawyer's larva on a fallen and burnt black spruce tree in the northern Quebec boreal forest, in Canada.

A flanking fire marks the edge of an experimental fire in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Instrumented areas of forest (mostly Pinus rigida with understorey of Quercus) was ignited by the New Jersey Forest Fire Service to understand fire behavior.

Lichens sp. and Spagnum sp. show a significant difference in burn severity in the northern Quebec boreal forest.

The photo taken from helicopter shows the landscape mosaic after 20 years of using the knowledge of fire patterns as benchmarks for harvesting planning near La Ronge in the province Saskatchewan, Canada. This approach focusses on emulating the amount and configuration of unburned vegetation patches after fire events to enhance tree regeneration, maintaining habitat connectivity and providing refugia for in-situ recolonization after harvesting events.

While on a fire assignment in the Great Basin ecosystem of Nevada, I was coordinating buckets drops on the ground. While heli-mopping a juniper tree (Juniperus osteosperma), a soaked mouse emerged.

Prescribed fire in a dry ponderosa pine forest, Sisters Ranger District, Oregon. Ponderosa pine forests in this area historically burnt at least once a decade, maintaining low fuel loading and open stands. Prescribed fire returns a natural process, keeps forests healthy, and reduces fuels which helps keep communities and firefighters safe.

This image is from a prescribed burn in March of 2015 near the Eddy Covariance Tower in the Austin Cary Memorial Forest (ACMF). Although this looks like a particularly active fire, the flame height in the image is actually only about 3' at its maximum. ACMF is a teaching and research forest for the University of Florida.

Three engine crew members work to ensure containment of a nighttime burn out operation on the 2017 Milli Fire, Sisters Ranger District, Oregon. Burn out operations are sometimes the safest and most effective control measures for battling wildfires and were critical to management of this fire burning in dry ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests.

After finishing a brief prayer, Margo Robinson, Cultural Fire Management Council, begins a prescribed burn on her tribe's land in N. California using a bundle of mugwort.

A cone from a pitch pine (Pinus rigida) spreads the seeds of the next generation following a prescribed fire in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

Megalog Study- La Pine, OR During a prescribed burn at Pringle Falls Experimental Forest, our research crew discovered the fruiting bodies of a member of the post-fire fungal community. Our research looked at how soil burn intensity and large log combustion affects fungal communities, soil properties, and ponderosa pine seedling regeneration.

Winds drying out heavy forested ladder fuels burning it's way to the finer fuels in agriculture fields and reaching homesteads below. Parker Ridge Fire near Bonners Ferry, ID 2015.

Intentional fire created to clear forests and expand the agricultural frontier, a common situation in Mexican forests, even in natural protected areas. Sacred fir (Abies religiosa) forest. Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, central Mexico.

Ecological memory, by way of material legacy, in the form of pinyon pine (pinus edulis) cones on a standing dead tree from the Spring Creek Fire region in the Rocky Mountains of southern Colorado. Concept of ecological memory and material legacy as described in "Changing disturbance regimes, ecological memory, and forest resilience," Johnstone et al. 2016.

Dragonfly sheltering itself from the rain on a charred lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) from the 2014 Chelaslie Burn in Entiako Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. The photo was taken in July 2015.

A leader of the 2019 Women's Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX) brings fire across an old-field burn unit at Tall Timbers Research Station near Tallahassee, Florida in March 2019.

Prescribed fire, Klamath National Forest, California.

Ground fire, Sequoia National Park, California.

Fire returns to the Willmore Wilderness Park in the Alberta Rocky Mountains Natural region. The Rockslide Creek Fire ignited in early June 2015 from a lightning strike that landed in a sub-alpine forest type. Lightning is very rare in these valleys as are spring fires. It is suspected that spring dip and strong winds contributed to the rapid spread of the fire which burned 12,000 ha.

Monitoring a prescribed fire in Sequoia National Park, California.

Fire-scarred ponderosa pine, Black Hills

Field trip to the Flathead Indian Reservation at the Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula, Montana in 2018

During a controlled prairie burn on Joint Base Lewis-McChord (Pierce County, WA) on August 27, 2012, a head fire is lit across a research plot to study the potential for fire to create streaked horned lark (Eremophila alpestris strigata) habitat.

This young pine has survived a low-intensity forest wildfire, a footpath in the forest served as a firebreak. Pine forest ecosystem, Uruapan Michoacan, Mexico, May 31st, 2016.

A young woman observe her controlled burning in a wheat plot. Every year the countryside people, men and women, use their fire traditional knowledge to prepare the land for next crop. Michoacan, Mexico, June 18, 2012.

I caught this shot while doing some Fire Behaviour Analyst work on the West Chilcotin Fire Complex in British Columbia. I think it is a statement about the severity of the fire season when things are greening up and you are still chasing active edges of the same fire. Although the combustion was fairly complete, there are already signs that this forest will recover.

Ancient agriculture terraces appear after a recent fire in Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain).

One of The Nature Conservancy crews pile burning at a preserve in Missouri. Dec. 2018

Prescribed stand replacement fire in bishop pine (Pinus muricata) in California.

Post fire treatment at Olokemeji Fire Experimental Plot at Olekemeji Forest Reserve, Nigeria. The fire investigation plot was set up in 1929 and lies on the transition between the Lowland Rain Forest and Derived Savanna Zones.

Bright green fireweed breaks up the black on the Chuckegg River Fire, High Level, Alberta .

SAFE members participate in prescribed burn with The Nature Conservancy after the 2017 Fire Congress in Orlando, Florida.

Barn owl (Tyto alba) hunting in front of prairie restoration prescribed fire. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas.

Field trip at the Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula, Montana in 2018.

Mushrooms take refuge next to a deeply charred log post beetle outbreak and wildfire in central interior British Columbia, Canada.

Diostea juncea resprouting 20 days after Las Horquetas Fire. The fire occurred in summer 2015 in a mixed Austrocedrus chilensis-Nothofagus antarctica andean patagonian forest, Cholila, Patagonia Argentina.

Drone workshop participants at the 2019 Fire Congress in Tucson, Arizona

Convection column of a wildfire occurring in native mixed Nothofagus-Austrocedrus forests in Los Alerces National Park in Patagonia, Argentina. This view was taken from Trevelin valley, 50 km away from wildfire occurrence.

Humboldt State University and Northern Arizona University students learn how to conduct ignitions as part of the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) in the Niobrara Valley of Nebraska.

Igniting a research burn to study fire and ungulate grazing effects on rough fescue (Festuca campestris) grasslands. Ya Ha Tinda Ranch, Alberta, Canada.

Plenary session at the 2017 Fire Congress

Participants in the 2014 Klamath River Prescribed Fire Training Exchange pause for a moment during ignitions to share some of their enthusiasm of bringing good fire back to the town of Orleans in the Western Klamath Mountains in far northern California.

Field trip participants at Big Cypress National Preserve after the 2017 Fire Congress in Orlando, Florida.

Despite advances in technology, the sling psychrometer remains the reliable standard for accurately measuring ambient temperature and humidity in the field. Weather measurements were taken during the application of a growing season prescribed fire in mesic flatwoods at Suwanee River State Park, Florida.

Field trip participants, 2019 Fire Congress in Tucson, Arizona

Field trip participants, 2019 Fire Congress in Tucson Arizona

Field trip participants at the Large Wildland Fires Conference in Missoula, Montana in 2014.

Night time prescribed burn in an Oregon white oak woodland in the Bald Hills region of Redwood National Park conducted as part of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) .

Fire AFEx speakers at the 2017 Fire Congress in Orlando, Florida.

A participant at the 2019 Women's Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX) prepares to ignite the interior of a unit at Tall Timbers Research Station near Tallahassee, Florida in March 2019.

Prescribed fire on Pinus pinaster stand in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. to reduce fuel load after thinning, pruning and shrub cutting.

Post fire survivor Kans (Saccharum spontaneum) in Mountain Ecosystem, Langtang National Park, Nepal: May, 2010.

Field trip leader explains the use of thermal cameras for data collection during the Western Rx Fire Science Research Burn at Lubrecht Experimental Forest in Montana.

SAFE members participate in prescribed burn with The Nature Conservancy after the 2017 Fire Congress in Orlando, Florida.

Humboldt State University students visit the Burney Mountain fire lookout tower in July, 2016.

Participants at the Western Rx Fire Science Research Burn at Lubrecht Experimental Forest in Montana, after the Fire Continuum Conference.

Burning natural grasslands in the Bolivian Amazon

Las Conchas fire spreading through ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) stand. Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico.

Plenary session, 2019 Fire Congress in Tucson, Arizona

Field trip to the Flathead Indian Reservation at the Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula, Montana in 2018

Exhibit hall at the Fire Continuum Conference in Missoula, Montana in 2018.

Marcus Rx burn Washington. Lake Roosevelt Nat Rec area. Smokejumpers igniting Pinus ponderosa, forest ecosystem.

McBride Fire, New Mexico sunrise regrowth. Juniperus deppeana 9/23/23.

McBride Fire, New Mexico.  Sunrise regrowth 9/23/23.

McBride Fire, New Mexico. Sunrise regrowth 9/23/23. Gutierrezia sarothrae.

An old, fire scarred ponderosa pine on Powell Plateau within the Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, which is one of the few remaining areas where fire has not been excluded from the ecosystem. 

Application of Rx fire to the Gabilan Range (San Benito County, California, USA) to reintroduce fire to oak woodland. This demonstrates column rotation as fire is pulled away from the edges and back toward the center of the burn to assist with both perimeter control and fuel consumption.

A ~70 year old Douglas-fir stand in the Western Cascades of Oregon was commercial thinned prior to the 2022 Cedar Creek Fire. Combined, the commercial thinning and wildfire enhanced the fire resistance of the stand by reducing ladder fuels and surface fuel loading.

Grass trees (Xanthorrhoea sp.) flowering en masse at Wilsons Promontory in Australia. Grass trees exhibit fire-cued flowering, with both defoliation and smoke found to trigger flowering.

Triple La Nina events are crippling humans and wildlife across East Africa. The rains have failed for three consecutive years in a row. People are suffering. Wildlife is perishing. The environment is changing. Savanna ecosystems rely on frequent fires to maintain an open grass-dominated habitat. But drought has struck and resources are scarce. “There is no room for fire”. Fuel can be harvested or consumed by livestock, but “not burnt”. “There is no room for fire” (Maasai research participant).

A prescribed fire consumes surface fuels in an open longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forest at Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, FL on 2/24/2021.

A smoke plume rises from prescribed fire operations in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forest at Fort Stewart Military Base in Hinesville, GA on 3/2/2022.

Smog blankets the understory of a longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forest the morning after a prescribed fire at Fort Stewart Military Base in Hinesville, GA on 3/4/2022.

Central Coast PBA, Santa Lucia Conservancy, San José State University researchers, and others collaborated to burn coastal prairie with coyote brush (baccharis pilularis) encroachment in Monterey County, CA on 11/1/23 as part of an ongoing study and restoration efforts. Exciting fire behavior included a fire whirl in a section of mowed French broom (Genista monspessulana).

The "Grove of Old Trees" coastal redwood (sequoia sempervirens) forest in Sonoma County California received prescribed fire at North Bay TREX, November 2022.

Santa Rosa Junior College's Wildfire Resilience Program provided a win-win opportunity for interns to implement prescribed fire and develop stewardship skills while increasing the fire resilience of Shone Forest. Photo taken during a Friday forest crew burn, April 2023 in Forestville, California.

Paleoecologists from the Alaska Quaternary Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks organize tools after retrieving a core of lake sediments near Denali Park, AK. Using macroscopic charcoal from well-dated lake sediments, the research team will reconstruct the frequency of fire necessary to assess the natural fire return intervals in the region over the past 1,000 years. Knowledge gained from this National Park Service funded project will assist Denali National Park and fire managers in developing park fire management and fuels treatment plans to manage for natural fire under future climates.

A National Park Service Fire Ecology crew traverses a section of deciduous dominated forest that has not recently burned amongst a matrix of burned spruce forest in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska. Fires burn in patterns that reflect extant vegetation, fire weather conditions, and topography among other factors. The mosaic of fire effects produced adds to the diversity of landscapes.

A hillslope along the Yukon River, in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska displays the power of fire in shaping boreal vegetation. At left, deciduous trees dominate the landscape amongst standing snags of burnt spruce. At right, extant spruce forest apparently was spared from the most recent fire.

Ben is implementing the first burn on a new longleaf pine restoration planting on the multi-generational family farm in central South Carolina with his brother Keith.

A pitch pine (Pinus rigida) grassland with a mountain oat-grass (Danthonia compressa) understory is rejuvenated by the spring's prescribed burn on Cedar Rock of DuPont State Forest in North Carolina.

Southeastern arnica (Arnica acaulis) is the first flower to take advantage of reduced competition shortly after the spring's prescribed burn in a mesic pine woodland at Congaree National Park, South Carolina.

This fire was located in Happy Jack, AZ in a Ponderosa Pine forest, and taken on August 10th, 2023. As a first-time seasonal wildland firefighter, every minute of my time last summer was spent soaking up every bit of knowledge I could find. Time spent on the line was the one thing that book learning in college can't match!

Photo of a planned burn in temperate eucalypt forest in Victoria, Australia. The burn was low intensity and occurred in Spring (October 2019).

Cultural fire practitioner Melinda Adams (San Carlos Apache) leading a Lul, Western Redbud cultural burn basket fire at the Tending and Gathering Garden, California, USA

Cultural fire practitioner Melinda Adams (San Carlos Apache) leading a Nope Laol, Deergrass cultural burn at the Tending and Gathering Garden, California, USA

Cougar in high severity patch, near Upper McCord Falls, Eagle Creek fire, Columbia River Gorge

Bear cub in Eagle Creek burn, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Waldo Lake, Willamette National Forest, during the 2022 Cedar Creek Fire.

Black bear with Mt Jefferson, Lionshead Butte, Lionshead Fire perimeter, Warm Springs Reservation

Carol Springs Rx: Globe Ranger District, Tonto National Forest. November 8th, 2023.

Taking a snack break on the Ceder Creek Fire (Willamette National Forest) in the Douglas-fir, mountain hemlock, and Pacific silver fir of the High Cascades.

Leading a cultural burn in tallgrass prairie Kansas, USA.

This photo provides a unique perspective at fuel continuity and fire spread during a burn, as the fire splits down the middle of the photo and shows burned vegetation versus vegetation about to be burned. This photo was taken during a prescribed burn in North Carolina’s Sandhills region, conducted on June 18, 2025, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy as part of NC State University’s Fire Week training for Forest Management students.

At a late spring burn on the Bouverie Woodland Preserve in Sonoma County, California, the Audubon Canyon Ranch's Fire Forward program teaches prescribed fire patterns for the ecological restoration of these Oak Woodlands and invasive species control. Photo taken June 2024

A prescribed burn in the Santa Cruz Mountains of Central California. The fire slowly climbs the rhytidome layer of the trees in a grove of Sequoia Sempervirens (Coastal Redwoods). The prescribed burn was part of a major forest fuel reduction project on private land for wildfire prevention and an effort to return the region to a regular and healthy fire cycle. The burn took place on the cool, moist mid-December days, just before the winter rains fell.

A late winter burn in the coastal canyons of Central California in Wilder Ranch State Park. The smoke lingers for days while the glow of the duff returns to carbon. The sensitive mix of dehydrated drainages here allows for a very slow cycling of nutrients.

Taking a break after completing a prescribed burn near Giant Forest Sequoia and Kings canyon N.P.

As the day’s last unit burns, pulled radiometers rest while a crew member directs a UAV to track smoke at the Olustee Experimental Forest.

Landscape level stand replacing fire restoration in Banff National Park. The key objectives to create/maintain habitat for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), bighorn sheep (Ovis Canadensis) and newly reintroduced bison (Bison bison).

Purple pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea) flowering in a black spruce (Picea mariana) bog after the Greenwood Fire in northeast Minnesota. Photo taken June 23, 2022, 10 months after the fire.

A California State Parks natural resource management firelighter demonstrates to the public what healthy prescribed fire looks like in a .25-acre Redwood Grove understory on California's Central Coast. The location, situated next to the Henry Cowell State Park visitor center, presented an educational forum during the Good Fire Fair. Several forest and fire ecologists were in the crowds of onlookers describing the process, benefits, and informing park visitors on the event.

Introducing prescribed fire in a Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine montane forest, Blackfoot Valley, Montana.

Carefully watching passive crown fire in Psuedostuga menziesii (Douglas-fir) dominated mixed conifer montane forest, Blackfoot Valley, Montana.

Carefully witnessing advancing night-time crown fire in a dry mixed conifer forest, Blackfoot Valley, Montana.

Understanding how animals flexibly adjust their behavior in response to shifting fire regimes informs conservation policies to help them navigate increasingly fiery times. This black kite (Milvus migrans) was particularly fearless, flying close to a rapidly advancing fire in Central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia.

On the savannas of northern Australia, Torresian crows (Corvus orru) quickly appear in great numbers once a fire has started to hunt fleeing prey. I captured this crow calling fervently from a tree overlooking the smoky aftermath, as if from a spooky film.

Understanding how animals flexibly adjust their behavior in response to shifting fire regimes informs conservation policies to help them navigate increasingly fiery times. This black kite (Milvus migrans) appeared as a dark silhouette, hunting close to the fire captured against its smoking and smouldering aftermath in Central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia.

October 9, 2025. Karuk Cultural Practitioner Isha Goodwin uses a propane torch to manage hazel for basketry material in the Karuk Tribe's aboriginal homeland along the Klamath River in Northern California. This burn was being conducted during this years Klamath River TREX in an oak woodland.

June 25th, 2024. Indigenous women lighting a prescribed burn on the Tishaniik Ceremonial Grounds using traditional tools during the 2024 Karuk Indigenous Women+ Prescribed Fire Training Exchange - Karuk Aboriginal Territory, Panamnik (Orleans) California.

July 8th, 2025. It's a historic day as Karuk Cultural Practitioners light a cultural burn, All Hands All Lands community Fire Practitioners light a prescribed burn, and the lightning caused 2025 Butler Fire is burning up on the mountain and being managed as full suppression by an Incident Management Team. Karuk Aboriginal Territory, Butler Creek, Salmon River California.

Boots planted in the ash of a long-unburned Pinus palustris forest, a graduate student measures how much duff was consumed during a reintroduction prescribed fire at Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge (Alabama, USA). After five decades without fire, the burn reveals both the weight of history and the resilience of a recovering fire-adapted ecosystem. (2024)

Young lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) that regenerated following the 1988 Yellowstone fires burned again in the 2016 Maple fire near West Yellowstone, MT. Five years later, in 2021, heavy smoke clouds the landscape and portends a future with more fire looming over Yellowstone National Park.

A bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) rests in a fire killed ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) near Buena Vista, Colorado. Once this ponderosa pine forest was thinned and fire was reintroduced, this bald eagle could easily fly through the open stand and began to frequent it.

Young lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) emerge from the understory six years after the 2016 Berry Fire in Grand Teton National Park. Serotinous cones released seeds right after the fire, and germinants that established grow rapidly each year.

Photo taken in March 2025 during a prescribed burn part of the Forest Fire Management class at the Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest. Auburn, AL

Photo taken in April 2025 checking a longleaf pine stand after a prescribed burn exercise in the Forest and Fire Management class at the Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest (Auburn, AL)

JCS, graduate student in Forest and Fire Ecology, ensuring fire breaks are clear during a prescribed burn demonstration and extension activity led by Dr. Heather Alexander for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Photo taken in February 2025 at the Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest in Auburn, AL.

A collaborative prescribed fire team reintroduced low intensity surface fire to fire-adapted ponderosa pine forest on state trust land near Angel Fire, New Mexico. The burn team included the New Mexico State Land Office, Forest Stewards Guild, TNC, local fire department, tribal partners, and others.

Smoke billows from a mature Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) in the Stoddard fire interval research plots on Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida. This particular plot has been burned on a 1year interval since 1960.

Fire interval research plots on Pebble Hill in Thomasville, Georgia. These research plots are burned during the growing season at different intervals.