Wildland Fire Research Future Search Conference Notes Park City, UT - October 6-8, 1997

V. Common Ground

ORGANIZATIONAL VISIONS

• Establish a Department of Natural Resources to eliminate interagency competition and foster interdiscliplinary collaboration.
• Create an integrated research structure to:

• increase communication and collaboration between researchers and managers among federal, state, and private entities;
• foster research and management integration; and
• address issues across boundaries and from regional to global scales.

• Establish an oversight council to:

• eliminate institutional and organization barriers and initiate seamless management structures;
• enact an adaptive management system with long-term research; and
• use research results in adaptive management, develop a true learning community, and relay results to the ground.

• Develop a common and compelling definition of wildland fire research and management to:

• bring wildfire researchers together and
• establish universal coordination of all wildfire research.

DECISION-MAKING VISIONS

• Science, fire science in particular, has a role in management decisions.
• Prescribed fire is part of resource management, which creates a better balance between prescribed fire and wildfire.
• Risk assessment is a primary decision-making tool.
• Remote sensing is a major tool for integrating state-of-the-art weather fore- casting into decision making and for monitoring.

PROCEDURAL VISIONS

• Make competitive research money available to all researchers to:

• emphasize integrated research and
• allow greater discretionary fund use.

• Construct a feedback process with stakeholders to:

• improve communication;
• provide better technology transfer;
• improve research implementation through the use of feedback from stakeholders; and
• filter, package, and disseminate findings.

• Fully integrate social research into fire research and management.

DESIRED OUTCOMES

• Research, integrated across disciplines, and management form partnerships.
• Communication between management and research is effective and continuous.
• Responsive and proactive research balances long-term scientific goals with rapidly changing management issues.
• The success of research and development is measured by on-the-ground implementation.
• Fire research is responsive to national goals and receives long-term, stable political support.

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Potential Projects
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• Participants began brainstorming potential projects based on the identified common ground. Projects ranged from administrative reorganization to discipline-specific programs and included the following.
• Federal land agencies establish a research branch for collaboration and increased effectiveness.
• Establish a Department of Natural Resources.
• Devise a reward system to credit researchers for working with management and vice versa.
• Establish a national, competitive grant program, with integrated research as a requirement.
• Support long-term research.
• Multiagency research development and applications that are issue-driven with specific objectives and are jointly funded, designed, and implemented by research and management.
• Project responsive to issues articulated by Congress and the White House (e.g., global change, catastrophic fire).
• Adapt National Science Foundation or an equivalent process for competitive grants.
• Lobby for support (dollars, program changes).
• Establish an International Wildland Fire Academy.
• Adopt a long-term, integrated research plan that supports long-term goals.
• Charter a committee of national fire managers to define national fire research goals and coordinate fire research.
• Establish an interdepartmental science team.
• Develop large, field-research campaigns involving multiple institutions.
• Produce an interagency budget initiative.
• Develop a shared vision of a "seamless" learning community.
• Evaluate existing processes, programs, and models.
• Finish information databases (GIS).
• Establish a geographical fire research library, information, and communication system on the World Wide Web.
• Develop technology transfer mechanisms.
• Institutionalize technology transfer.
• Seek money for more technology transfer.
• Integrate remote sensing.
• Obtain support for long-term monitoring and research of social and adaptive management.
• Apply EPA Ecological Risk Assessment guidelines to fire management.
• Develop long-term, landscape-scale vegetation management research in selected ecosystems.
• Survey public values related to prescribed fire and wildfire.
• Use the newly created council or institute for natural resource inventory and monitoring including fuels inventory and fire monitoring.
• Develop an internal and external outreach campaign.
• Study firefighter behavior.
• Complete a Wildland Fire Assessment System-integrated modeling system.
• Develop a short- and long-term fire modeling project.

Title: RMRS-P-1: Wildland Fire Research - Future Search Conference Notes: V. Common Ground
Electronic Publish Date: December 16, 1998
Expires: Indefinite
Last Update: August 19, 2008

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