Learning to Live with Wildfire in the White Mountains

This presentation will explore the region’s fire regimes and significant past fires, local land management efforts implemented to reduce risk, and innovative ways to make your community more resilient to wildfire.

Learning to live with wildfire is essential as wildfires intensify and become more frequent and severe. In this presentation, we’ll explore the region’s fire regimes and revisit some of its most significant past wildfires. We will dive into ongoing local land management strategies designed to reduce wildfire risk to your community and highlight examples of how other communities across Arizona are working to improve their resilience before future fires. Everyone has a role to play in reducing wildfire risk in the White Mountains – together, we’ll explore how your role connects to the work of fire professionals from local fire stations to public lands to make your neighborhood safer.

Our presenters include members of the Arizona Wildfire Initiative (AZWI) and the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management (DFFM). Cole Brant oversees the Fire Ecology Learning Lab on behalf of the Southwest Fire Science Consortium and has a wealth of experience with wildfire including as a wildland firefighter in Northern California. Jon Orona, the Northeast District Forester with DFFM, leads a team in the planning and implementation of fuels reduction, community protection, watershed management, and landscape-scale forest restoration projects in the White Mountains. Dr. Catrin Edgeley, an Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Sociology at NAU’s School of Forestry, is a wildfire social scientist engaged with communities across the US West exploring new ways to live with fire.

Members are free – Others, we ask for a $10 donation