Preparing for Wildfires with Firescaping: A New Training Toolbox & Online Train the Trainer Opportunities

The USDA-NIFA funded “Preparing for Wildfires with Firescaping” is an interactive training toolbox designed to train southeastern U.S. Master Gardeners, Cooperative Extension educators, Master Naturalists and other community groups on fire-resistant landscaping, or firescaping, in order to help reduce wildfire risk. The ultimate goal of this project is to increase southeastern U.S. homeowner and community wildfire preparedness through Extension programming. The project includes an online training for Extension educators and a Firescaping Training Toolbox to teach the day-long training to Master Gardeners and other community groups. The training toolbox includes presentations, handouts, interactive activities, recommended outreach activities, and much more. Please contact the project manager Holly Campbell at [email protected] for more information or to host a virtual training in your area (virtual-only for now, due to the Coronavirus). As another wildfire season approaches many parts of the U.S., this is an important time to prepare communities and homes for wildfire. The training course can be found here . The online training, in its entirety, will take approximately 4.5 hours to complete. 

MS & GA Forestry Commissions Unveil New Websites  

The Mississippi Forestry Commission has just launched a new streamlined website, which has been in the works for almost a year. Updates include an enhanced user-experience and a fresh, modern aesthetic. Click here to access the newly-designed site.

The Georgia Forestry Commission also created a new website with a more robust search engine designed to focus on services, resources, news and events. This website includes four major categories of interest: forest management & conservation, fire prevention & suppression, forest industry and urban & community forestry. Check it out here: https://gatrees.org .

NC State Publishes Wildland Fire Programming 'How to' for Extension and Outreach Professionals

NC State University Extension recently released a new publication guide for wildland fire programming for Extension and outreach professionals. The guide features a variety of information relating to wildland fire topics and methods, including burn workshops, burn demonstrations, and field tours, workshops, and drills. The guide includes many details related to planning and implementing wildland burn programming, including consideration of target audiences, tips on working with partners to make use of diverse audiences and resources, the successful navigation of workshop registration, accommodation, and safety issues. Detailed solutions are also provided for many common issues organizers confront when building burn workshops, including the length and timeline of the burn, suitable weather conditions, pre-and post-workshop letter composition, and successful advertising of the workshop itself. The complete wildland fire programming guide can be found here .

Longleaf Ecosystems & Environmental Education Resources

The Georgia Forestry Commission, in conjunction with the Georgia Forestry Foundation, Georgia Project Learning Tree (PLT), and the Chattahoochee Nature Center, are providing a regularly-distributed email that will provide interactive forestry education resources to subscribers. Interested parties who would like to receive these resources in their inbox each week can visit here to subscribe. This email would be of great use to educators and schools who wish to find and make use of a diverse set of environmental and natural resources education tools and resources. Project Learning Tree’s goal is to provide environmental education for students ranging from early childhood into secondary education. The Georgia PLT website can be found here , and the complete map of PLT State Coordinators for the nation can be found here .  

MSU Extension, UGA Outreach & Others Develop Smartphone App to Assess Wild Hog Damage

Mississippi State University (MSU), in partnership with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, MSU Extension Service, the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, and the MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center’s Center for Resolving Human-Wildlife Conflict, has recently developed and released a new mobile application, the “Feral Pig Damage” app, which makes it easy for users to report the location of wild hog sightings and the damage they cause. Users can pinpoint or draw a polygon on a specific location, upload photos, estimate economic loss as soon as they encounter it, and describe multiple attributes about the type of damage—including crop type, whether it’s an agricultural, hardwood or pine area, as well as growth stage. Developers say they hope the app helps provide a more complete picture of the intensity and location of the damage in order to help refine economic estimates. According to a Mississippi State research study, feral pigs cause $66 million in property damage in the state each year, and in time, this app will generate a database of wild hog sightings and damage estimates that can be shared across multiple management organizations. Find out more here . The app is available for download in the Apple Store here or for Android download on the Google Play store here . 

Provide Input on Expanding Southeast Drought Early Warning System for FL, AL, GA, SC, NC & VA

The U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) is asking for feedback on how a Southeast ‘Drought Early Warning System’ (DEWS) can best support drought planning and preparedness at state and cross-state levels. NIDIS is currently expanding the Southeast DEWS to include the full geographic footprint of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. DEWS brings together federal, tribal, state, local, academic, and other partners to improve the capacity of regions to monitor, forecast, plan for, and cope with the impacts of drought, and NIDIS is asking for feedback on how a Southeast DEWS can best support drought planning and preparedness at state and cross-state levels. The survey can be found here and takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. Input from the survey will inform the building out of a Southeast DEWS and the initial identification of key drought information needs in the region and answers to the survey will be used internally by NIDIS. NIDIS is asking for your name on the survey so that they may follow up and ensure you have opportunities to engage in the future. Questions concerning this survey can be directed toward Meredith Muth by email at [email protected] . 

Heirs Property & Asset Mapping Webinar

A new one-hour webinar, Heirs Property: Standing on a Lot of Love, will be premiering on May 21, 2020 at 1 p.m. US/Eastern time. Sponsored by NC State University Extension Forestry, the webinar will provide participants with an understanding of the legal structure of heirs property, the values around this ownership model, opportunities for engagement with heirs property owners that support natural resource conservation and community, asset mapping as a tool for community level support, and engagement with heirs property owners. This engaging webinar will provide a cultural and historical context of why families own property as heirs property, demystify the legal structure of heirs property ownership, consider strategies to stabilize ownership and then look at ways land trusts can engage with heirs property owners to protect natural resources on their land through best practices, conservation easements, and acquisitions. Presenters will include Mavis Gragg, Director, Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Project, and Sam Cook, Executive Director of Forest Assets, NC State University College of Natural Resources. Foresters, landowners, land managers, natural resource professionals, and land trusts are especially encouraged to participate.

This webinar will be recorded and posted back to the Webinar Portal for on-demand viewing within a week, and Continuing Education Units (CEU) are available for on-demand webinars when applicable. To find out more about this webinar and how to obtain CEU’s through it, please visit here . Pre-registration is not required.

North Georgia Prescribed Fire Council Meeting Goes Virtual

The North Georgia Prescribed Fire Council Meeting set for June 4th , 2020, will be conducted as a Zoom Webinar due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers wanted to sustain the momentum gained from last year’s North GA meeting held in Jasper, so this effort, while a little more challenging in a virtual setting, will help. The virtual 5-hour meeting, with breaks, will feature the typical agenda of speakers with live interaction from the audience for questions and comments. Critical issues for prescribed fire practitioners and advocates will be addressed, with a special emphasis on North Georgia and its unique terrain, population, and forest types, and meeting attendees will hear from prescribed fire experts on eight different topics .Organizers are working to finalize everything and participants are now able to register at no cost here on the Council website, with the opportunity to receive three hours of CFE’s for participation currently in the works. The GPFC’s mission is to protect the right, encourage the use of, and promote public understanding of prescribed fire, and the council engages in prescribed fire advocacy across the state of Georgia.

NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency Guide for Natural Disasters

The North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) published a guide, Natural Hazards Resilience: A Quick Start for North Carolina Communities, that will help communities become stronger and better equipped to withstand the impacts of future natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and wildfires, as well as the ongoing effects of climate change. The guide is the first part of an ongoing effort by NCORR’s team of experts to define what it means to plan for and build resilience in communities while integrating those measures into the work local governments do every day. The newly released guide provides information for local governments on how to begin planning for natural disasters and changing conditions, including climate change, by incorporating the concepts of resilience into the work they already do. Incorporating resilience-building principles into local government projects and activities will help North Carolina better prepare for hurricanes and other disasters. The guide is available for review and download here NCORR’s ReBuild NC website.   

Landowners Association of Texas Spring Newsletter

The Landowners Association of Texas (LAT) have recently published the April edition of their newsletter. The newsletter provides valuable news articles concerning land ownership, including tips for current landowners and useful historical information. April’s newsletter included articles covering news and bills relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, historical information on black farmer land ownership, and increasing efficiency in land development.

A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) 2020 Event’s Call for Abstracts

A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) 2020 event will be held on December 14-17, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point in Bonita Springs, Florida. The central theme for this year’s ACES is "Focusing on the Future of Ecosystem Services" with emphasis placed on accelerating the use of ecosystem services for land and resource management and fostering the next generation of ecosystem service researchers and practitioners. The Program Committee is seeking input from the community and invites assistance with program development via the abstract submission process. All ecosystem services related research and applications abstracts are welcome, with special preference on ideas relating to ecosystem services in action, human physical and mental health benefits of ecosystem services, cultural ecosystem services, and tool demos (consider submitting an abstract for a special organized tools session, which will feature five tools at individual tables where participants will be able to see live demonstrations of the tool). The deadline for submissions is June 22, 2020. Find more information and the link for submissions here .

May 2020 Woodland Owner Notes eNewsletter

NC State University Extension has published the May 2020 version of their monthly newsletter, Woodland Owner Notes. This month’s eNewsletter includes information on a variety of forestry and natural resource topics, including forest land ownership tips, online resources for forestry education, and adaptation tools for use during a pandemic, as well as links to upcoming events and educational opportunities. Click here to access the site containing a copy of newsletter and an opportunity to subscribe to future releases.

Upcoming Biomass Energy Webinar Series

The Maryland Wood Energy Coalition has created the Biomass Energy Webinar series, “Seeing the Forest for the Trees,” examining the impacts and advantages of utilizing wood resources for thermal biomass energy in Maryland. This webinar series will highlight available technologies, economic competitiveness, ease of installing and operating biomass energy systems to examine how Maryland commercial and institutional consumers can benefit from the adoption of thermal biomass energy solutions. Speakers, including policy makers, industry experts and environmental advocates, will share case study examples of successful projects and discussions will cover a range of economic, operational, environmental, policy, and regulatory considerations. The series will include webinars on June 2, 9, 23, and July 7, 2020. To find out more and for the complete schedule of sessions, please visit here. Organized in 2010, the Maryland Wood Energy Coalition is a diverse group of state agencies, university extension, nonprofits, and businesses with the mission to advance the responsible use of Maryland’s vast supply of woody biomass for clean, affordable thermal energy production.

CDC Releases Guidance for Forest Firefighters for COVID-19

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has released a link with some guidance and FAQ’s for Wildland Firefighters amid the COVID-19 crisis. This information includes steps to be taken to reduce the risk of infection and tips to isolate as a unit, issues related to symptom and infection screening among crews, questions on testing prioritization for first responders, and precautions to be taken at fire camps and when returning home to families and communities. The full resource can be found here . 

Predictive Services National Fire Weather Podcast Briefings

In mid-March, the National Predictive Services program a NIFC in Boise, Idaho created two podcasts. The first one, which has short-term forecast, provides a 30,000 foot overview of the intelligence, fuels, and weather information provided by Predictive Services for the partnering land management agencies in the fire organization. This podcast includes brief discussions on fire activity and fuel conditions across the nation and on anticipated weather and drought conditions expected over the next week to ten days, with significant focus given to anticipated critical fire weather events when and where fuels are receptive. The second podcast focuses on longer-term data and encompasses the best data available to assess anticipated climatic, drought, and fuels conditions during the next 14 to 120 day period. More specifically, trends (both observed and anticipated) are analyzed, and potential impacts are identified. Each briefing, both the short-term and long-term, averages 15-18 minutes in length. The short-term podcast is recorded and posted on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with the long-term posted on the 1st and 15th of the Month, or closest business day to those dates. The podcasts may be accessed by visiting here or here , and will be available through October 1.  

Wildfire Risk to Communities and LANDFIRE Webinars

The USFS has several upcoming webinars covering topics and tools relating to wildfires. These will include the “Using the Wildfire Risk to Communities Website” webinar, to be held on May 21, 2020, with a demonstration of the new Wildfire Risk to Communities website, including use of the interactive maps, charts, and resources available for every community, county, and state in the U.S. (register here ), the “Data, Science, and Methods behind the Wildfire Risk to Communities Website” webinar, to be held on May 28, 2020, covering the science and data used to calculate and map wildfire risk nationwide in the new Wildfire Risk to Communities website (register here ), the “LANDFIRE (LF) Remap in the North Central United States” webinar on May 27, 2020, which will inform participants about the new LF Remap products, what has changed from previous product offerings, and what remains the same or has been updated (connect here ), and the “LANDFIRE Remap in the Southeastern United States” webinar on June 17, 2020, sponsored by the Southern Fire Exchange and the University of Florida, will review LANDFIRE product offerings, describe what has changed, what has not changed from previous versions, and provide information on future program plans, all from the perspective of a user in the Southeast US (register here ).

Southern Regional Extension Forestry | www.sref.info | [email protected]