Interview with Mike Zupko, chair of the Southeastern Wildland Fire Strategy Committee

Interview with Mike Zupko, chair of the Southeastern Wildland Fire Strategy Committee

SREF is working with the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy to develop a fire management plan for the Southeastern United States. We recently got together with Mike Zupko, chair of the Southeastern Strategy Committee and Southern Governors Association Representative, to chat about the NCWFMS, its goals, its relationship to landowners and forestry professionals in the Southeast, and its collaborations with Southern Regional Extension Forestry. The NCWFMS is designed to develop, and implement fire and land management strategies in the United States. The national management strategy is further divided into three regional action plans: the Southeast, the Northeast, and the West.

SREF: Welcome Mike! We're glad to have this opportunity to discuss the National Cohesive Strategy with a key player in its implementation and development. Thank you for being here. 

Mike Zupko: No problem! I'm always happy to discuss the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.

SREF: So, first off, did you come up with the name? Do you think it could to be a little longer? 

MZ: I can't claim responsibility for that, but it is a mouthful, isn't it? The name was codified in the Flame Act of 2009, which first ascertained the need for such a plan and set parameters for its development and implementation. Before hitting the legislature it was much shorter!

SREF: So to start out our interview, what is the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy? 

MZ: The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy is a collaborative effort between federal, state, local, and governments, non-governmental partners, and public stakeholders , including groups such as the Southern Governor's Association, the Nature Conservancy, the Southern Group of State Foresters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the USDA Forest Service,  the US Department of Defense, the US Department of the Interior, and many others to ensure that the nation's landscape is resilient to wildland fires, that our communities are prepared to control them and prevent loss of life and property damage, and that every part of the country has a safe and effective wildland fire response in place. To accomplish these goals, we develop better wildland fire risk assessment technology, such as GIS land maps of potentially affected regions, we produce informational materials and host and facilitate educational opportunities, and we encourage communication and action between communities, firefighters, landowners, and forestry professionals, among other things. In order to tailor our strategies for differences in communities, landscape, and climate, we've divided the Cohesive Fire Strategy into three regions: Southeast, Northeast, and West. 

SREF: And you're the chair of the Southeast Region. Tell us about the challenges specific to that region. 

MZ: Well, unlike the Western region, which has a landscape full of federal lands, the Southeastern region is dominated by privately-owned lands. This means that we have to encourage people to follow our advice rather than, say, passing federal legislation or policy and enforcing it. While that sounds like it might make our job more difficult, in fact, we've found that landowners in the Southeast have a lot to offer in terms of wildland fire risk assessment and control strategies. Many of them are third or fourth generation farmers who have a healthy respect for fire, and they have developed methods of their own for managing and controlling wildfire after years of experience. Our contribution, in addition to supplementing their knowledge with the latest information and the most useful technology, is to get knowledge and opportunity for action out there to other landowners, extension agents, agency personnel, forest professionals and others, and to establish a dialogue between all of these groups. 

To reflect this difference in atmosphere, we've developed a set of 5 key values for our Southeastern strategy:

  1. Increase firefighter and public safety
  2. Identify and enhancing marketable products
  3. Recognize ecological services that forests provide
  4. Honor cultural values and benefit from traditions
  5. Improve property protection  
 
While most of these are common to all three regions, identifying and cultivating marketable products is particularly important for the Southeast, whose private landowners need to understand how wildland fire preparedness intersects with their business concerns. 
 
SREF: So what are the tools and strategies that you've developed and are in the process of developing for the Southeastern Region and the strategy in general? 
 
MZ: Currently, we're getting ready to unveil southernwildfire.net in the first quarter of 2015. We hope the website, which we've developed in collaboration with SREF's Daniel Drummond on the technical end, will be a portal that connects the public, firefighters, landowners, concerned citizens, and foresters alike to everything wildland fire related in the South. One of the most useful and exciting features that the website will offer is a series of models for action, which will be narrative accounts of how various communities and agencies dealt successfully with wildland fire events in the past. These stories will provide examples that other communities and agencies can discuss and adapt for use in their own locales. To make another SREF connection, SREF Extension Associate Holly Campbell is currently working on writing a number of these! 
SREF's Steven Weaver is also developing a GIS mapping tool that will intersect and display areas of the Southeast that are particularly at risk for wildland fires and where various types of interventions will have the biggest impact. 
We have been networking and will continue to network with groups like the Southern Fire Exchange and the Joint Fire Science Program, as well as the State Prescribed Fire Councils and individual extension agents connected to the 13 Southern land-grant universities associated with SREF.  In fact, we feel that extension professionals will play a big role in coordinating and communicating the strategy throughout the region. To that end, we're planning several "train the trainer" type workshops,  which will educate extension professionals and foresters and make sure we all have the latest information and understanding of the impact of wildfire and opportunities for action. In turn, these educators will then be able to better inform the public about our strategy. 
 
 SREF: All of that sounds great! We can't wait till the website is up. In the meantime, what is your advice for landowners and general public about how they can better inform themselves about and prepare themselves, their property, and their communities for wildland fires?
 
MZ: First off, they can go to the Southern Wildfire Risk website, run by the Southern Group of State Foresters. There, they will find tools for risk assessment and prevention planning that are applicable throughout the south. Additionally, they can search online for their local extension agent or agency personnel, who should have information on wildland fire risk and prevention. 
Less officially, they can discuss their concerns with other landowners. As I said before, many landowners have methods they have learned from their ancestors and years of tending their properties. If landowners discuss these issues among themselves, this will ultimately strengthen everyone's knowledge  and decrease the risk of catastrophic wildland fire events. 
 
SREF: Great advice! Do you have anything else to add before we finish?
 
MZ: We're off to a great start in terms of bringing people together to control and manage wildland fires in the Southeastern region. We're not going to stop wildland fires entirely, and even if we could that wouldn't be necessarily desirable for the area's ecosystems, but we can work together to keep them in check and ensure that our firefighters, our communities, our lands, and our ecosystems are preserved in the process. 
 
SREF: Thanks for the interview, Mike! We look forward to continued collaboration between the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy and SREF. 
 
 
 
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