Top left: US Forest Service Regional Forester Glen Casamassa, Oregon State Forester Peter Daugherty, Oregon Governor Kate Brown, USDA Undersecretary Jim Hubbard and Oregon stakeholders at the official signing. Top Right: Hilary Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands and US Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen speak about the benefits of shared stewardship at the signing in Washington State. Utah Governor Gary Herbert and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue sign the Utah shared stewardship agreement. Photos: Kate Lighthall, Washington DNR, Utah DNR-FFSL.  Oregon is the latest state to enter into a Shar ..read more

 Top: Rick Stratton sharing value of the Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment. Bottom: Caerleon Safford sharing impacts and lessons learned from Sonoma County's 2017 fires and Jeff Johnson from the Western Association of Fire Chiefs calling the group to action. Over 200 stakeholders from across five counties in Oregon came together on April 18th for a unique Cohesive Strategy learning experience - Can Central Oregon Become Another Paradise? The event kicked off with sobering accounts from four individuals who experienced the 2014/2015 Carlton and Okanagan Complexes in Washington, the 2017 Th ..read more

Today, more than one-third of the U.S. population lives in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) — those areas where development mixes with undeveloped wildlands. The attraction of country living and closeness to nature is accelerating growth in the WUI. However, when wildfires strike, the WUI’s mix of buildings with forests and grasslands sets the stage for disaster. A key issue — and one that planners can influence — is where and how we build our homes. The land-use decisions that planners shape can help build communities that are safer and more resilient to wildfire.   PAS Report 594, Plan ..read more

How does your community recover from severe disaster and build resilience? James Gore, County Supervisor in Sonoma County, California is leading the charge towards building resilient counties following devastating wildfires. The 2017 fires left the Santa Rosa area war-torn and shattered but not defeated. As Supervisor Gore describes in this short video, the county "jumped into action" during and immediately after the fires by rethinking their disaster communications and assisting local communities in organizing to start the rebuilding and recovery process. Watch this short video to see how i ..read more

Screenshot of the online portal.  As part of our new working group examining the issues around post fire impacts, we are uncovering a variety of methods by which states and communities are addressing these sometimes catastrophic incidents.  In New Mexico, stakeholders have been facing severe post fire impacts and long-term recovery efforts for decades. New Mexico State Forestry, in partnership with a diverse group of stakeholders (listed below), developed and published the After Wildfire Guide to help communities recover after a wildfire.  The guide provides information on how to mobilize co ..read more

At our fall 2018 strategic planning meeting, members of the Western Regional Strategy Committee (WRSC) agreed to launch three work groups to address significant issues surfacing across the West. The WRSC is in a unique position as convener, facilitator and influencer that can assist in connecting stakeholders, delivering information, pushing messages and elevating issues to the appropriate levels.  These new groups will not take away from our regular attention to all things Cohesive Strategy; they will allow for a deeper dive and specific action by stakeholders around each set of diverse iss ..read more

Hawai'i Governor David Ige and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue sign the MOU. Photo: WGA   On December 12, 2018, the Western Governors' Association (WGA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to "establish a framework to allow the Forest Service and WGA to work collaboratively to accomplish mutual goals, further common interests, and effectively respond to the increasing suite of challenges facing western landscapes." This MOU was signed at the WGA 2018 Winter Meeting following Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue's keynote. The MOU was signed ..read more

 Fuel breaks work on the Badger Creek Fire in Wyoming. Photo: USFS *updated January 31st to include corrections and the DOI Secretarial Order in response to the Executive Order.  Just prior to the partial government shutdown, Congress approved and the President signed the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, aka the Farm Bill. In December the President also signed Executive Order 13855 - Promoting Active Management of America’s Forests, Rangelands, and Other Federal Lands to Improve Conditions and Reduce Wildfire Risk. In addition, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior released Secr ..read more

A collection of screen shots from WildfireALERT and photo of one of the towers where cameras are placed. WildfireALERT is a promising new network of fire detection cameras with day and night detection capabilities. Developed by a team of seismologists from University of Oregon, University of Nevada and UC San Diego who developed ShakeALERT, for you guessed it, early detection of earthquakes, the same system can be used for wildfires, floods and other natural hazards.   Using wireless, high-bandwidth IP connectivity, the system can: discover, locate and confirm fire ignitions allow for the qu ..read more

Deschutes County zoning map showing low density zone adjacent to public lands.   As thousands of people are still trying to figure out their new normals following the Camp and Carr Fires in 2018, many are looking at the commonalities of these unprecedented fires to find ways to prevent these types of tragedies in the future.  Deschutes County in Oregon is routinely confronted by wildland fires that occur on the forested public lands just west of the city of Bend. Living with wildfire in this fire-dependent ecosystem means stakeholders must confront the hard truth that defensible space and ho ..read more