Toward A Global Prescribed Fire Network - A Multi-generational Endeavor:
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The Exposing of the Deadly and Dangerous Wildland Fire Exclusionist
Often fire exclusionists have the best of intentions and while active in firefighting, conservation, media, politics and education they do horrific damage to man and nature out of ignorance as to how nature works. All around the world when a country becomes capable of developing a firefighting capacity inevitably the fire fighters move out of the cities into the Wildlands where they in conjunction with political leaders suppress and even outlaw local cultural and agricultural burning practices.
The horrific damage that this fire exclusion activity causes only shows up years and decades later, both overtly in huge unstoppable catastrophic mega-fires and covertly in degrading light fire ecosystems into low fire ecosystems. Global warming is a minor factor in causing these mega-fires in well managed ecosystems but more of a factor in poorly managed ecosystems. The prime cause is the buildup of fuels caused by fire suppression over decades that is to blame. (See my Fire History Lecture for more detail.)
In order to combat this destructive sequence of events a number of very stubborn dedicated individuals recognized the threat and set about doing something about it in the Southeastern United States. They became concerned in the 1920s when the dangerous and deadly effects of the suppression of local burning practices became evident in the United States as the US increased its firefighting capabilities that began in the 1800s. The Dixie Crusaders a fire suppression group rolled into the Southeast in the late 1920s preaching that all fire was bad.
This began what was has become a multi-generational global endeavor, a global prescribed fire network of dedicated individuals and groups who understand that most ecosystems are fire adapted and need regular light fire and infrequent catastrophic fire to exist. They understand that man himself if he is going to live in the Wildland Urban Interface must himself become fire adapted and undertake wildfire mitigation and ecosystem reconstruction activities to protect both man and nature.
In the 1950s Ed Komarek Sr. began to conceptualize the bringing together of individuals he called Mavericks (a cow that goes its own way independent of the herd) from around the world who were doing fire science and fire management independently. He began to organize what became Tall Timbers Research Station in the 1950s with the TT global fire conferences beginning in the early 1960s.
He built Tall Timbers as a vehicle primarily to support his efforts to use fire science to undermine US Forest Service fire exclusion and suppression propaganda. By this time much of the local agricultural and cultural burning practices of the people living on the land in the US had been suppressed beginning in the 1800s and fire exclusion policies implemented nationwide. He saw this very same destructive policy being implemented worldwide in other countries as they developed the funding and capabilities to suppress fire on a large scale.
Starting with the TT's Fire Conferences he began to use TT to build a global fire network and traveled widely to promote controlled burning now known as prescribed fire in other countries. Unfortunately old age and the corporate raid on TT by the Land Trust caused him to lose his grip on TT and he was removed from the organization and the organization was redirected over the years primarily toward local and regional prescribed fire education and science by the new board. However there seems to be an effort to begin to rebuild his global network with what is called the Prescribed Fire Consortium.
In the 1980s new people took up the torch toward building a Global Prescribed Fire Network. Johann G. Goldammer seems to have picked up where my Father left off in both advancing global fire science and building a global prescribed fire network. In Europe Alexander Held also has been doing great work building a European prescribed fire network. About this same time The Nature Conservancy began to promote prescribed fire worldwide. However the United States has really took the lead in developing national prescribed fire networks and organizations like the Prescribed Fire Councils and the Interagency Prescribed Fire Center, that while building a strong base in the US have yet to build out into the rest of the world.
In addition national and global social media firefighting groups with tens of thousands of members have emerged on Facebook. Several years ago in order to promote my activities to follow up on the past work of my Dad and his associates I started the Association of Fire Management Activists group that has grown to be the largest prescribed fire group in the world, but still small compared to the firefighting groups. My intention is to use the social networks to build towards a grass roots global infrastructure that will complement and support the top down approach being developed by Johann Goldammer. What the rest of the world needs is the type of advanced grassroots prescribed fire organizational structure that has been organized and maintained by multiple agencies and groups in the United States. Without a sustained and growing grass roots base, top down approaches are bound to fizzle out over time.
So where do we go from here? I really think that to some extent we have been putting the cart before the horse in our overall global prescribed fire network building. We got folks like Johann working at the highest levels of world governments and those of us working up from the grass roots. But it seems to me that what we really need is to take another page from Dad’s playbook and work to build a multi-million dollar institutional vehicle to drive global prescribed fire science and management. Such an institution would not only work with governments, but support and fund grass roots global indicatives in fire science, education and reasonable prescribed fire regulations and laws, to get fire back into nature in all countries and regions.
What this is going to require is that we reach out beyond the prescribed fire and firefighting communities to business leaders who are good at institutional building as has the Nature Conservancy. We need to find one or more very dedicated business people with a strong interest in prescribed fire to build this institutional vehicle and who can raise the necessary funding from many global sources such as insurance agencies, timber companies and conservation groups.
Ed Komarek can easily be found networking on Facebook and if you are on Facebook please join us at the Association of Fire Management Activists as we do our small part toward building out this multi-generational grass roots Global Fire Network. We also really need prescribed fire contacts from Asia, India, Russia, China, and Central and South America.
The horrific damage that this fire exclusion activity causes only shows up years and decades later, both overtly in huge unstoppable catastrophic mega-fires and covertly in degrading light fire ecosystems into low fire ecosystems. Global warming is a minor factor in causing these mega-fires in well managed ecosystems but more of a factor in poorly managed ecosystems. The prime cause is the buildup of fuels caused by fire suppression over decades that is to blame. (See my Fire History Lecture for more detail.)
In order to combat this destructive sequence of events a number of very stubborn dedicated individuals recognized the threat and set about doing something about it in the Southeastern United States. They became concerned in the 1920s when the dangerous and deadly effects of the suppression of local burning practices became evident in the United States as the US increased its firefighting capabilities that began in the 1800s. The Dixie Crusaders a fire suppression group rolled into the Southeast in the late 1920s preaching that all fire was bad.
This began what was has become a multi-generational global endeavor, a global prescribed fire network of dedicated individuals and groups who understand that most ecosystems are fire adapted and need regular light fire and infrequent catastrophic fire to exist. They understand that man himself if he is going to live in the Wildland Urban Interface must himself become fire adapted and undertake wildfire mitigation and ecosystem reconstruction activities to protect both man and nature.
In the 1950s Ed Komarek Sr. began to conceptualize the bringing together of individuals he called Mavericks (a cow that goes its own way independent of the herd) from around the world who were doing fire science and fire management independently. He began to organize what became Tall Timbers Research Station in the 1950s with the TT global fire conferences beginning in the early 1960s.
He built Tall Timbers as a vehicle primarily to support his efforts to use fire science to undermine US Forest Service fire exclusion and suppression propaganda. By this time much of the local agricultural and cultural burning practices of the people living on the land in the US had been suppressed beginning in the 1800s and fire exclusion policies implemented nationwide. He saw this very same destructive policy being implemented worldwide in other countries as they developed the funding and capabilities to suppress fire on a large scale.
Starting with the TT's Fire Conferences he began to use TT to build a global fire network and traveled widely to promote controlled burning now known as prescribed fire in other countries. Unfortunately old age and the corporate raid on TT by the Land Trust caused him to lose his grip on TT and he was removed from the organization and the organization was redirected over the years primarily toward local and regional prescribed fire education and science by the new board. However there seems to be an effort to begin to rebuild his global network with what is called the Prescribed Fire Consortium.
In the 1980s new people took up the torch toward building a Global Prescribed Fire Network. Johann G. Goldammer seems to have picked up where my Father left off in both advancing global fire science and building a global prescribed fire network. In Europe Alexander Held also has been doing great work building a European prescribed fire network. About this same time The Nature Conservancy began to promote prescribed fire worldwide. However the United States has really took the lead in developing national prescribed fire networks and organizations like the Prescribed Fire Councils and the Interagency Prescribed Fire Center, that while building a strong base in the US have yet to build out into the rest of the world.
In addition national and global social media firefighting groups with tens of thousands of members have emerged on Facebook. Several years ago in order to promote my activities to follow up on the past work of my Dad and his associates I started the Association of Fire Management Activists group that has grown to be the largest prescribed fire group in the world, but still small compared to the firefighting groups. My intention is to use the social networks to build towards a grass roots global infrastructure that will complement and support the top down approach being developed by Johann Goldammer. What the rest of the world needs is the type of advanced grassroots prescribed fire organizational structure that has been organized and maintained by multiple agencies and groups in the United States. Without a sustained and growing grass roots base, top down approaches are bound to fizzle out over time.
So where do we go from here? I really think that to some extent we have been putting the cart before the horse in our overall global prescribed fire network building. We got folks like Johann working at the highest levels of world governments and those of us working up from the grass roots. But it seems to me that what we really need is to take another page from Dad’s playbook and work to build a multi-million dollar institutional vehicle to drive global prescribed fire science and management. Such an institution would not only work with governments, but support and fund grass roots global indicatives in fire science, education and reasonable prescribed fire regulations and laws, to get fire back into nature in all countries and regions.
What this is going to require is that we reach out beyond the prescribed fire and firefighting communities to business leaders who are good at institutional building as has the Nature Conservancy. We need to find one or more very dedicated business people with a strong interest in prescribed fire to build this institutional vehicle and who can raise the necessary funding from many global sources such as insurance agencies, timber companies and conservation groups.
Ed Komarek can easily be found networking on Facebook and if you are on Facebook please join us at the Association of Fire Management Activists as we do our small part toward building out this multi-generational grass roots Global Fire Network. We also really need prescribed fire contacts from Asia, India, Russia, China, and Central and South America.