GOLDENDALE — When a fire starts to burn and it starts to spread, it might just be a carefully planned, intentional blaze set by the second annual Columbia Gorge Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (CGTREX). Held during the week of Sept. 22, CGTREX brought over 30 individuals to learn the skills needed to successfully implement a prescribed fire via training sessions and live burns throughout the Columbia River Gorge.
The program, hosted by Mt. Adams Resource Stewards (MARS), focused on collaboration by incorporating participants with a diverse range of backgrounds. To do so, CGRETX offered Red Card certifications, a necessary qualification to work on a fireline, to those without one. This way, fire professionals, land agents, nonprofit representatives and university students from across the U.S. and other countries could learn from one another through hands-on experience.
Two firefighters on the interior of the prescribed burn.
Emma Renly photo
For participants like Kylie England, a freelancing fire practitioner from South Africa based in The Dalles, CGTREX helped her check off the requirements to become a qualified firing boss, which is someone who leads ignitions and firing, as well as learn practices she could teach back in her home country.
“I want to bring prescribed fire to South Africa since we need fire as it’s a tool when used appropriately,” England said, explaining that there is a lack of training and development in prescribed fire for suppression.
England first found training exchange through a Google search, including the women-specific iteration called WTREX, in 2019. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she wasn’t able to join in person until years later.
“[WTREX] focuses on diversity in fire and women in fire. And I thought, that’s great. I would love to get into that because I was just about to start leading the first all-female crew in Africa called Juliet,” England said. “I want to bring women up …Organically, we have the most women on fire in the world, 35-45%, but if you step into leadership roles it becomes less than half a percent.”
A firefighter on the interior of the prescribed burn.
Emma Renly photo
The hands-on portion of the training wrapped up on the final two days with a live burn on 60 acres owned by the Columbia Land Trust in Goldendale’s oak-pine woodland ecosystem. The area is naturally adapted to frequent, low-intensity fires.
“This is one of our natural areas, one of many, that we thought could benefit from prescribed fire,” said Adam Lieberg, natural area manager of Columbia Land Trust. “It’s a good place to reintroduce fire for ecological benefits that we know of, and also just a good area where we could do some training burns as well because it’s very open, flat terrain.”
He noted that the focus of Columbia Land Trust is to manage habitats for wildlife and to maintain ecological integrity. For the Goldendale burn, an objective was to improve foraging conditions for western gray squirrels and to reduce the build-up of litter on the ground, which could otherwise contribute to a high-severity wildfire.
A firefighter stands on the exterior of the handline during the burn.
Emma Renly photo
Implementing these burns, however, requires collaboration through shared expertise and tools. “As a nonprofit private landowner, we don’t have the resources and most of us don’t really come from a professional fire background, either,” Lieberg said. “We rely on building partnerships with other local, regional, national, and international people that specialize in fire and prescribed fire.”
Liegerg pointed to MARS as a local partner leading the way for private land prescribed burns. In May 2023, the two organizations, along with Sustainable Northwest, formally combined to form the Mt. Adams Prescribed Burn Association (PBA). Their mission entails pooling resources and knowledge of prescribed burns for small private landowners in Washington and Oregon.
With these partnerships, the plan is that prescribed burns will continue. After the initial week-long program, participants who live locally will remain on-call to assist in additional prescribed burns throughout October in the Gorge.
A firefighter on the interior of the prescribed burn.
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