FAC Net blogs include success stories, lessons learned, resources, tips and even failures related to community wildfire resilience. Please contact us if you have a story to share.
Learn about Ashland Fire & Rescue's ten-year journey to redefine its wildfire hazard zone and pass a risk reduction ordinance applicable to new and existing structures. Credit: Graham Lewis, Ashland Chamber of Commerce
Mar 21, 2019
How Ashland Passed a Wildfire Ordinance (Hint: We Removed Our Ordinance Blinders)
By: Alison Lerch, Chris ChambersThe danger of designated wildfire hazard zones is that they inherently consider some areas as “out” of the zone of risk. The 2009 Siskiyou Fire and 2010 Oak Knoll Fire in… Read More
Topic: Collaboration Fuels treatment / Prescribed fire Ignition-resistant home construction Planning
Editor's Note: All blog entries are reviewed and edited for length and clarity by Network staff before approval for posting.
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And why collaboration is essential to addressing them.
Jun 20, 2019
I often hear that community collaboration or collaborative conservation involve wicked problems. Ever wonder what that really means? In the Northeast, wicked is used as… Read More
Topic: Collaboration
Type: Essay
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What is good fire? We in fire often tout the term, claiming that "more good fire means less bad fire." But what are we talking about when we say that? Credit: Lenya Quinn-Davidson, Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network
Jun 13, 2019
How did you find fire? Did it come to you — a wildfire in your community, a random job opportunity — or did you go to it? I like to think I was born into it. I was born at… Read More
Topic: Fuels treatment / Prescribed fire Local workforce capacity
Type: Research Synthesis
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An emergency management coordinator describes the opportunity for collaboration and partnerships between emergency management and wildfire resilience practitioners. Credit: Boulder County Emergency Operations Center
Jun 06, 2019
A Day in the Life with Andrew Notbohm: How Emergency Management and FAC Go Hand in Hand
By: Emily Troisi, Andrew NotbohmInterviewer’s note: During my five years working with FAC Net, I’ve discovered a passion for understanding how communities prepare for, respond to and recover from natural… Read More
Topic: Collaboration Resilience Wildfire Wildfire recovery
Type: Interview
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Photo of headphones with the following text imposed: FEMA Region 10 Podcast Featuring FAC Net
May 30, 2019
Seeking Fire Adaptation and Community Resilience Peers? Join FAC Net!
By: Michelle Medley-Daniel, Fire Adapted Communities Learning NetworkOur partners at FEMA Region 10 recently produced a podcast focused on the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network (FAC Net). If you’ve been wondering about FAC Net’s… Read More
Topic: CWPPs Defensible space / Firewise Evacuation outreach/planning Fuels treatment / Prescribed fire Wildfire
Type: Tools / Resources
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Instead of trying to get your communities to "accept" smoke, equip them with resources to prepare for it. Credit: Mike Elson, Coconino National Forest shared Flickr Creative Commons
May 23, 2019
“It’s not as simple as, ‘How do you want your smoke?’ We could conduct thousands of acres of prescribed fire in our county and still be breathing smoke from another… Read More
Topic: Communications / Outreach Resilience Wildfire
Type: Tools / Resources
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A personal account of a beloved great grandmother's evacuation during the Camp Fire. Credit: Sharon Hahn Darlin shared via Flickr Creative Commons
May 16, 2019
Last October, I was visiting my mother, brother (Rick), and sister-in-law (Joanne), in Paradise, California. My mother, at the age of 98, had transitioned out of her home and… Read More
Topic: Evacuation outreach/planning Wildfire
Type: Essay
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A breakdown of recent federal directives and policy related to the Cohesive Strategy. Photo: These fuel breaks successfully protected homes during the Badger Creek Fire (Wyoming). Credit: USDA Forest Service
May 09, 2019
Two National Directives and One Piece of Public Policy Worth Understanding: The 2018 Farm Bill, Executive Order 13855 and DOI Secretarial Order 3372
By: Katie Lighthall, National Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy, Western RegionEditor’s note: If you haven’t spent much time with the new Farm Bill, Executive Order 13855 and Secretarial Order 3372, take a moment to read these summaries produced by… Read More
Topic: Fuels treatment / Prescribed fire Wildfire
Type: Tools / Resources
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Interested in controlled burning across ownership boundaries? Check out this new case study on Trinity County's pathway toward more all-lands, all-hands prescribed fire. Photo credit: Jim Bartlett, Team Rubicon for USDA Forest Service
May 02, 2019
How We’re Burning Across Boundaries: Trinity Integrated Fire Management Partnership Case Study
By: Nick Goulette, Watershed Research and Training CenterHere in Trinity County, California, we were early adopters of the FAC ethos. We created our first community wildfire protection plan before the CWPP acronym was even invented.… Read More
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"As much as I love a successful controlled burn, the trust built with landowners can feel like the biggest victory of all. " Credit: Matt Cocking
Apr 25, 2019
4 Tips for Conducting Controlled Burns on Private Property from a Burn Boss
By: Phil Dye, Prometheus Fire Consulting LLCWe stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the fire creep down the hill. The flame was continuous but low, no more than 8-inches tall. It was now burning, restoring, a strip of… Read More
Topic: Fuels treatment / Prescribed fire
Type: Best Practices
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Tucked away in northwestern California, the community of Orleans experienced significant loss due to a wildfire in 2013. Since then, we've been using spatial fire planning to chart a better path toward wildfire resilience, including leveraging the wildfire footprint to create additional fuel breaks around our community. Photo credit: Thomas Dunklin
Apr 18, 2019
Show Your Partners You’re Listening. Literally! How We’re Using Values-Based Spatial Planning to Visualize and Prioritize Collaborative Forest Restoration
By: Will Harling, Jill BeckmannThe first meetings of the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership (WKRP) felt like going on a blind date … with 60 people! As our facilitator, Mary Huffman, divided us at… Read More