If you google the word “fire” almost all of the images that come up capture one of three things: firefighters engulfed in flames while putting out a burning building, flames edited onto a dark background that look to be made for a computer desktop or devastating wildfires. It takes a fair amount of scrolling before you’d find a photo similar to the one taken of Lars Filson, a University of Idaho senior studying fire ecology and management, burning wood with a drip torch while walking calmly about a plot of land.
This kind of work that Filson and other students in UI’s Fire Ecology and Management Program conduct is called prescribed burns, which are controlled fires that contribute to the ecological health of certain areas.
“We look at how individual species will react to fire, and then spend a lot of time studying basic ecology and ecosystem processes,” Filson said.
“We look at how individual species will react to fire, and then spend a lot of time studying basic ecology and ecosystem processes,” Filson said.
Often, people think of fire as something that needs to be put out, and firefighters as people that work only to put them out – especially after witnessing the devastating wildfires in California and Australia that occurred over the last year. However, suppression is only one aspect of what firefighters and fire workers do, and it isn’t always the answer. UI’s Fire Ecology and Management Program through the College of Natural Resources gives students the opportunity to explore how fire can be beneficial when controlled properly and can contribute to healthier ecosystems.
“We’re at a really pivotal point in the history of this country right now, where historic fire suppression, climate change, ecosystem fragmentation, and the outward expansion of various populations have all been contributing factors to why there’s been such catastrophic fires,” Filson said. “That makes it a really exciting time to be going to school because there is so much importance in fire management.”
Filson began his fire education at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon, and transferred to UI after three years to pursue a bachelor’s degree in fire ecology and management because of opportunities the university provided.
The College of Natural Resources offers more courses focused on fire than any other natural resources school in the country, according to UI’s website. Students also have access to the UI Experimental Forest, where many prescribed burns take place. However, burns also take place outside of a class setting.
The Student Association of Fire Ecology Club, also allows students to participate in burns. SAFE Club is a national organization formed in 2000, created to provide students of fire ecology and management and other related studies networking opportunities, access to funding and the ability to share information between chapters. Filson served two terms as the club’s national president and is currently serving as the local chapter’s vice president.
“The SAFE Club is a great opportunity for students in the fire program to be really involved on campus,” Filson said. “It’s a really tight community.”
Within the fire ecology and management program and the SAFE Club, there’s an emphasis on prescribed burns and how to execute them properly, which its members are passionate about.
“Prescribed fire is one of the best ways that we can manage our forests, and it’s really good for them,” Risa Rushton, a senior studying fire ecology and management said.
Along with pursuing her degree, Rushton has served as a wildland firefighter for the past four years.
“I managed to get a job and it changed my life,” Rushton said. “I fell in love with fire, and after the second-year fire completely switched my plans and I made sure I could come to UI to get this degree.”
With her “boots on the ground” experience combined with her deep interest in the research and fire science aspect of fire, Rushton knows better than most what fire is capable of and understands the negative sentiment toward it.
“Fire does have a very negative connotation in the modern world,” Rushton said. “It’s seen as something that destroys homes, destroys lives and destroys beautiful views. However, when you dig into the science and the research that people have done on it, fire is very beneficial, especially here.”
“Fire does have a very negative connotation in the modern world”
According to Rushton, the West has many fire adapted species and ecosystems that need wildland fire to grow and be healthy, and these fires ultimately help prevent more severe fires. This is because of the historical fire regime, which Rushton defines has how often fire comes into an ecosystem and how severe it is.
When fire burns in more frequent cycles that are less severe, it can provide an ecosystem with nutrients and positively contribute to its health. On the other hand, when fire is too suppressed it can lead to a build-up of too many plants or “fuels” and cause more severe fires.
“That’s why we’ve been having a lot of these mega-fires,” Rushton said. “The huge increase in fuels from the lack of burning and the increase in tempera-ture from climate change builds to create these situations that make fire look really bad.”
In theory, if more fires were left to burn, future fires may not be as extreme. However, this is often more difficult for people to execute in practice. According to Heather Heward, a UI fire ecology and management instructor, this is because people are reactive by nature.
“Fire is a piece of our ecosystem, and one that is going to continue to return whether we like it or not,” Heward said. “We can either have them returning to our ecosystems when we can’t control them, or we can take the proactive approach and we can return fire to our ecosystems under controllable conditions. Humans tend to prefer the reaction to the pro-action.”
As an instructor and someone who served as a wildland firefighter for eight years, Heward also understands the varied attitudes toward fire. What concerns her the most, though, is people’s lack of proactivity to different aspects of fire, including prescribed burns, that’s taking place in the West.
Because of this, Heward helped develop the Idaho Prescribed Fire Council in December, which seeks to examine how other states have used fire or fire-related policies and how Idaho could utilize them to increase fire’s effectiveness in the state. According to Heward, Idaho is one of the last states to implement this kind of council and has a lot to learn from other states.
Something Heward and the council have researched is the implementation of certified burn programs so more people can be trained on how to use fire correctly and conduct prescribed burns on their land themselves.
“The more we get involved in training, education, experience and resource sharing, the more likely it is that people are going to say ‘Oh, I can do that,’” Heward said. “I’m a big believer there’s a kind of human connection to fire that we’ve had for a long time, and there’s a real power that comes when we use fire effectively on our landscapes.”
Heward hopes that people in the future are more familiar with fire so that they can better understand the nature of it.
“Fire isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It is, just like we are,” Heward said. “And it’s a tool that we have an opportunity to use for the benefit of the things we find are important.”