NEW JERSEY — How can partnerships in wildland fire research save lives, protect property, enhance military training effectiveness and promote better prescribed burning operations across the globe? One way may be to leverage and learn from the successes of a little-known partnership between the Department of Defense, the Forest Service and the state of New Jersey. This partnership has, for decades, fostered innovative fire science and learning among students, managers and researchers from around the world. On Sept. 22, the DOD Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and the New Jersey Forest Fire Service met at the Silas Little Experimental Forest in the New Jersey Pine Barrens to review nearly 100 years of partnership wildland fire research and demonstration in the area and discuss how this program could be beneficial into the future.

Among wildland fire professionals, the New Jersey Pine Barrens have long been regarded for their fast-paced, ferocious fires that can occur in almost every month of the year and threaten life and property. In almost every decade on record since the 1800s, numerous major fires have occurred with at least one burning over 10,000 acres (often in a single work shift). Yet to combat this, state, private and federal partners work together to treat approximately 20,000 acres annually to reduce risk and restore and maintain this fire-dependent landscape. 

However, it wasn’t always like that. While traditional burning has always been common in the Pine Barrens on private land, prescribed burning on public land was virtually non-existent until experimental prescribed burn research conducted cooperatively by the Forest Service and New Jersey Forest Fire Service at the experimental forest demonstrated the benefits of prescribed fire. 

As a mainstay, the program has continued to partner with fire managers and scientists to develop actionable fire research and demonstrations that are responsive to evolving manager needs. In recent decades, this partnership evolved to include the DOD, a large landowner in the Pine Barrens, which has expanded the opportunities for researchers, managers and students from not just the region, but around the world to conduct innovative fire research and learn from demonstrations. 

Representatives from each agency came together for a tour of the Silas Little Experimental Forest and outlying research sites on DOD and state lands, and to observe firsthand how this unique partnership is providing science with benefits far beyond just the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Here, scientists oversee projects that work to understand how the physical environment, like underbrush and deadwood, influences fire behavior. This work helps guide land managers in when, where and how prescribed fire should be used to develop landscapes that are less prone to wildfire starts and less likely to see extreme wildfire behavior after an ignition. The managers and scientists involved also serve as a public resource anyone interested in learning more especially via local, regional, and national fire science and application networks they are a part of.

“Our research is mutually beneficial locally, and the information we gather through experiments and techniques we develop have the potential to help land managers across the country and even around the world,” stated Michael Gallagher, research ecologist and scientist-in-charge at the Silas Little Experimental Forest. 

Gallagher believes that the Silas Little Experimental Forest location has the potential to be a training ground for other scientists to join them in studying fire science on the ground, and for forest managers to conduct more hands-on application of fire as a land management tool. The Silas Little Experimental Forest is remote, but not a very far drive from major cities like Philadelphia, New York or D.C.

“I really appreciate our partners at DOD and NJFFS that are helping the Forest Service continue to be a leader in research,” stated Gallagher, “and I think these partnerships will continue to grow and benefit landscapes and a whole lot of people.”