Forty certified firefighting professionals from the U.S. and Canada are participating in a two week-long program to carefully ignite fires and burn roughly 1,000 acres of the forested understory in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon. Since its launch 15 years ago by the U.S. Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, The Prescribed Fire Exchange Training Program, or TREX, has taken place in more than a dozen states and grown to include international participants and the involvement of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Tribal nations, state and local agencies, universities and NGOs. After more than a century of fire suppression activities, prescribed burning is increasingly being used as a fire management tool to improve forest ecosystems and protect communities in an era of catastrophic wildfires driven by climate change. Joining us to talk about prescribed fires and the training program is Thomas Stokely, a forest ecologist with The Nature Conservancy in Central Oregon, and Kaci Radcliffe, the Northeastern Oregon forest restoration project manager for The Nature Conservancy.