Prescribed fire plays a vital role in creating healthy landscapes that better survive natural and human-caused disturbances, while reducing wildfire risk to communities, infrastructure, and natural and cultural resources. Episode 3 of "Afire" highlights three scientists and partnerships that are attempting to better understand and utilize prescribed fire.

From Georgia, ecologist Joe O’Brien explains how researchers and forest managers are forming unique meetings that spark fresh ideas and advancements in prescribed burning across the South. In California, forester David Weise begins research into the processes related to pyrolysis to better estimate how prescribed burning affects people. And, in Arkansas, forestry technician Virginia McDaniel recounts a decades-long story of prescribed fire fortifying an ecosystem and an endangered woodpecker.

Related Research:

• Prescribed Fire Science: The Case for a Refined Research Agenda (2020)
• Comparing Two Methods to Measure Oxidative Pyrolysis Gases in a Wind Tunnel and in Prescribed Burns (2022)
• Comparison of Pyrolysis of Live Wildland Fuels Heated by Radiation vs. Convection (2020)
• A Project to Measure and Model Pyrolysis to Improve Prediction of Prescribed Fire Behavior (2018)
• Particulate & Trace Gas Emissions from Prescribed Burns in Southeastern U.S. (2015)
• Diversity Explodes with Another Boring Burn with USDA Forest Service’s Virginia McDaniel (2023)
• Pine-Bluestem Literature Review (2013)
• Renewal of the Shortleaf Pine-Bluestem Grass Ecosystem (2010)

Scientists:

• Joe O'Brien, Research Ecologist, Southern Research Station, Athens, Georgia
• David Weise, Research Forester, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Riverside, California
• Virginia McDaniel, Forestry Technician, Southern Research Station, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Forestcast is an official USDA Forest Service podcast, and is produced by USDA Forest Service Research and Development.

Want more information? Visit us at https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/products/multimedia/forestcast

Questions or ideas for the show? Contact Jon at [email protected]