Wildland Fire Science and Management Courses

Introduces applications of GIS in fire ecology, research, and management including incident mapping, fire progression mapping, GIS overlay analysis, remote sensing fire severity assessments, fire atlas analysis and the role of GIS in the Fire Regime Condition Class concept and the National Fire Plan. Additional assignment/projects required for graduate credit.

Learn about prescribed burning in support of ecologically-based management through reading, discussion and participating in hands-on service learning, planning, conducting and monitoring prescribed burns, reading and discussing local ecology and management, working collaboratively, and developing skills in fire management. Course requires travel as well as pre, during and post-travel writing, discussion and presentations.

Tools, quantitative analysis, and approaches for inventory and management of fuels for wildland fires over large, diverse areas in forests, woodlands, shrubland, and grasslands. Critically review and synthesize relevant scientific literature.

Assessment of the controls and drivers of emission processes and impacts on air quality from ires, industry, and other natural sources. Overview of the combustion and emission process, how these emissions impact the ‘quality of air’, and what models exist to monitor the emission. Other topics to include: recent EPA and other guidelines for smoke management planning, attainment issues, atmospheric transport and deposition processes. Additional work required for graduate credit.

This graduate course provides an overview of fire effects in multiple ecosystems, as well as key concepts, approaches to studying ecological effects of fires, and the science literature. Exams are take-home, requiring extensive reading in scientific journals available online through the University of Idaho library. Because you can choose which questions to address on the take-home exam, you can tailor this class to your interests in fire ecology. I have high expectations of my students for their ability to synthesize science information, and to write concisely in style of scientific journals. We cover restoration ecology, fire and climate change, and other ecological issues, but this is not a course on fire management.

This course is an online course only. Critically review science literature and write both brief and in-depth syntheses to address applied questions in science and management. Learn best practices for summarizing and communicating science effectively. Discuss challenges for application of science in management. Examples will focus on wildland fire science and management.

Understand the processes that control fire behavior in forest and rangelands, including combustion, emissions and heat release, and related fire effects. Use theory and advanced knowledge with scientific literature and case studies to critically assess the assumptions and limitations of limitations of surface and crown fire models, including the varying influences of fuels, terrain, and environmental conditions.

Relationships between fire science and management and the federal laws and regulations that affect fire management in wildland ecosystems; the politics of wildland fire; and the effects of wildland fire on wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities.