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Thursday, 3:30pm

In the United States and many other parts of the world, fires are behaving differently now than they have throughout history, largely as a result of human actions. An estimated 80% of U.S. forests and rangelands have altered fire dynamics. The panelists will share lessons learned on the restoration of landscapes that depend on fire to sustain native plants and animals. By restoring this balance, the ecological, economic and social values of the landscapes can be maintained, and the threat of catastrophic wildfire can be reduced. This is a practitioner based discussion on how fire can be integrated as a tool for landscape scale restoration and community protection.

Speakers

• Will Harling, Director, Mid-Klamath Watershed Council
  Burning for a fire safe community and forest in the Klamath Mountains
• Suzanne Hickey, Loess Hills Project Director, Fire Learning Network, The Nature Conservancy
  Restoring and maintaining viable ecological communities by integrating safe and effective prescribed fire into private land management in the Great Plains
• Amy Waltz, Fire Ecologist, Oregon - The Nature Conservancy
  Context and Overview of the Fire Challenge
  

Moderator

Amy Waltz, Fire Ecologist, Oregon - The Nature Conservancy

Recommended Readings

• Mobile Prescribed Fire Crews: Pooling Resources and Expertise to Restore Landscapes, U.S. Fire Learning Network, 2007
• Prescribed Fire for the Loess Hills, sponsored by the Loess Hills Alliance, funded by the REAP Conservation Education Program
• The Loess Hills Regional Fire Management Plan, Prepared for the Loess Hills Alliance Stewardship Committee by Agren, Inc. November, 2004
• Prescribed Fire Associations, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Oklahoma State University
• Texas Burn Association Brochure
• Information about the Mid Klamath Watershed Council Fire Ecology Symposium
  

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Will Harling

Will was born and raised in Forks of Salmon, CA.  He has a BS in Environmental Biology from Humboldt State University, with an emphasis on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Botany, Fisheries, and getting out to the Klamath and Salmon Rivers every weekend.

After graduation in 1999, he settled in the Orleans/Somes Bar area and continued work with the USFS and Salmon River Restoration Council. Since 1993, he has worked both seasonally and full-time for these organizations working in Fisheries, Wildlife, Botany, Ecology, Roads and GIS, studying spotted owls, Chinook and Coho salmon, lichens, the accuracy of vegetation models, fire and fuels, and sediment input from road systems. He has facilitated coordination amongst stakeholders leading to formation of the Orleans/Somes Bar Fire Safe Council (OSB FSC) and the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC).

Presently, Will is the director of MKWC and the OSB FSC, and in addition, works on contract with the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources. In this role, he can pair prospective WSP members with work opportunities that fit their unique talents and goals, including work in the following fields: fisheries, watershed education, GIS, water quality, invasive species management, grant writing and management, and restoration monitoring.

Suzanne Hickey

Susanne M. Hickey has worked full-time for The Nature Conservancy in the Loess Hills since 1998, having served with the organization part-time in 1992 and 1993.  Currently, she serves as the Conservancy’s Loess Hills Project Director in western Iowa.  One of the primary ecological stresses in the Loess Hills is the loss of the natural fire regime, thus much of Susanne’s work focuses on developing collaborative strategies to restore fire to the native prairie and oak woodland systems in a private lands landscape.  She also oversees the Conservancy’s land protection efforts in the Loess Hills, negotiating land purchases and conservation easements.

Prior to working for the Conservancy, Susanne was the principal partner in Eco~Centrics, a private biological consulting company in Nebraska.  Her work there included threatened and endangered species surveys, wetland delineation and mitigation site design, ecological assessments, and developing stewardship and fire management plans for private landowners.  Susanne has an MA with thesis from the University of Nebraska-Omaha where she investigated the effects of fire behavior on tallgrass prairie.

Amy Waltz

Amy is a research ecologist with a background in ecological restoration in ponderosa pine.  She worked 8 years for the Ecological Restoration Institute in Flagstaff, AZ coordinating multi-agency research efforts at a ponderosa pine restoration site north of the Grand Canyon (BLM, AZ Strip District).  She received her PhD from Northern Arizona University in Biology studying the response of understory plants and insects to restoration thinning and burning treatments in ponderosa pine.  After moving to Oregon, she taught introduction biology and conservation biology at Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR.  Her current position is a cost-share position between The Nature Conservancy and Deschutes National Forest to implement a collaborative effort (Fire Learning Network) to accelerate the restoration of fire adapted systems, to augment monitoring efforts on federal fuel reduction projects, and to test LANDFIRE map products against locally derived map products.