3rd International Fire Ecology and Management Congress

The Third Fire Ecology and Management Congress provides a week long focus on the science and technology that are the basis for the management of wildland fire. The theme of the plenary session is “Changing fire regimes: Context and consequences,” featuring invited speakers who will further explore this topic that is so significant for fire management. Concurrent sessions and a poster session will cover a wide range of topics and issues, including both contributed papers and special sessions developed on specific themes, all with a central focus of fire ecology and management. Topics will range from fire effects on vegetation and wildlife, fire in a landscape context, fuels management, and post fire rehabilitation, to the latest technology for predicting and monitoring fire. An exhibit will showcase new products, technology, and tools. The Congress is being held in southern California because the fires of fall 2003 are still fresh in people’s minds. It provides a forum for discussion of what we have learned from them, and whether catastrophic fires are more or less likely to occur in the future. The complexity of the wildland fire management task continues to grow, as fire regimes appear to be changing, acres burned with uncharacteristically severe fire increasing, wildland fire suppression costs escalating, and an enhanced program emphasis on fuels management on Federal lands, with considerable support and oversight from Congress and the public. Wildland fire management is a multi-faceted program. It's planning and implementation requires knowledge and experience in fire, ecology, and fuels, blended with an understanding of people and communities. The Congress provides an opportunity for fire and land managers, scientists, resource professionals, agency administrators, local government representatives, consultants, university staff, students, and the concerned public to learn from the specialists, and from each other. The Congress allows us to learn about scientific developments, discover new technologies, exchange and build upon ideas, and explore the relevancy of problems, issues and solutions from other parts of the continent and the world. Top Special Sessions in Preparation • Advances in fire climatology: Using modern and paleofire data to understand long-term and broad-scale fire regime changes in the western US • Air quality regulations and wildland fire: Issues and challenges • Building the support you need: Incorporating education and communications into fire management programs • Changing fire dynamics and ecosystem responses in tropical vegetation • Changing spatiotemporal dynamics of fire regimes in the Appalachian Mountains • Chronology of 2003 San Diego wildfires: What happened, what we learned, and what we have done • Do past management activities compound the effects of fire exclusion in western forests? • Ecological consequences of large fires • Effects of fire and fire surrogate treatments for ecological restoration • Effects of fire on ecosystems - Fire and nonnative invasive plant species • Fire and dynamics of semi-arid and arid landscapes • Fire ecology and fuels management collaboration: The good the bad and the ugly • Fire in boreal forests • Fire management under projected future climate regimes • Fire mediated changes in Alaska boreal forest • Fire regimes and fire effects in Mexican ecosystems • LANDFIRE: Scientific foundations for multi-scale fire fuels and risk assessments across the U. S. • Landscape fire modeling • Liability, T & E Species, clean water & cultural resources: Issues and challenges • Living with fire in chaparral ecosystems: Connecting science, experience, and decisions • Native American burning practices and contemporary fire management: Restoration of culturally significant plants and habitats • Recovery after wildfires in Mediterranean ecosystems • Research and management insights from the 2003 southern California firestorms • Scientific foundations of burn severity mapping • Sense of community and cooperation created after the October 2003 wildfires in San Diego • The interactions of wildfire and insect outbreaks in the western US • The past and future of wildland fire use in the United States • The public and fire management: Scientific findings on social understanding, beliefs, and practices • Wildfire impacts on invasive and threatened and endangered fishes, aquatic organisms and their habitats • Wildland fire decision support

For more information, visit
http://emmps.wsu.edu/firecongress/