Category: Cal SAF News

This month-long event features work from over sixty California-based artists and includes installations from U-Prep and Enterprise High School students, a fire ecology exhibit, interactive public art, workshops, panel discussions, and live performances: http://norcalsaf.org/events/

Landowners, managers, students and natural resource professionals looking to apply prescribed fire are invited to join these upcoming two-day workshops. For more details, please refer to our events page

http://norcalsaf.org/events/

The Summer Meeting Agenda has been posted — please refer to our events page for the itinerary and registration info: https://californiasaf.org/event/california-saf-summer-meeting/

Help State Fair goers enjoy the cooler temperatures of the forest and learn about native plants and trees along our nature trail. We will have rescued forest wildlife, kids’ crafts, a portable sawmill demonstration, a chainsaw carver and free tree seedlings for Forest Center visitors. *For more information and to sign up, please visit our Events page: https://californiasaf.org/event/california-state-fair-please-consider-volunteering-at-this-event/

Information on how to prepare for wildfire can be found at www.ReadyForWildfire.org. The site offers tips for residents to make their homes more resistant to wildfires and also details safe and efficient evacuation strategies.

Be Ready for a wildfire by maintaining 100 feet of Defensible Space and hardening your home with fire resistant building materials. Be Set for a wildfire by having a wildfire action plan in place so you know what to take and where to go if you are evacuated. Lastly, Go early when a wildfire approaches or you are asked to evacuate.

Created in 1993 with a goal of educating educators, this program provides K-12 teachers with the knowledge, tools, and skills to effectively teach their students about forest ecology and forest resource management practices. Four one-week long sessions of this award-winning program are offered, one near Sonora (Tuolumne County) one at Camp McCumber (Shasta County), one in Arcata (Humboldt County) and one near Quincy (Plumas County). Public and private forest resource specialists and other natural resource managers and environmental education specialists serve as the educators and presenters at FIT. FIT participants will develop a curriculum unit, design student projects, and become adequately endowed with the tools necessary to increase student understanding and appreciation of our dynamic forest ecosystems and the complex issues faced by forest managers.

Learn more here.

Encourage local participation and work together to achieve community resilience: 

You can help promote wildfire safety by encouraging residents to work together on a project or event. Participation helps create a sense of community, where neighbors begin to look out for each other. Wildfire Community Preparedness Day projects can also help strengthen relationships between residents and the local fire department, land management agencies, community leaders, and elected officials. See a list of possible projects.

Want to get started?

We have the tools to get you and your community off and running with your own project for Wildfire Community Preparedness Day:

• Download our toolkit, which includes checklists, key steps, safety tips, and much more.
• Distribute our fact sheet (PDF) to let people know more about the event.
• Download a save the date flyer. (PDF)
• NEW! Get guidelines for capturing images that tell your story (PDF).
• NEW! Use this news release template (docx) to announce your community’s participation.
• One of the criteria for becoming a Firewise USA® recognized site requires participating in an annual wildfire risk reduction project. Wildfire Community Preparedness Day is a great time to start. Contact your state liaison to begin a community wildfire risk assessment (PDF) to identify and guide your priorities and activities for Prep Day and throughout the year.

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A worthwhile effort:

• Toolkit
• Project map Put your Wildfire Community Preparedness Day project on the map.
• Project ideas We’ve developed more than two dozen project ideas for individuals, families and groups.
• 2019 Wildfire Community Preparedness Day project funding award winners
• Success stories Read about some successful projects from Wildfire Community Preparedness Day.

Michigan State University (MSU) Forestry and The Society of American Foresters are pleased to announce our upcoming online course – ‘Physical Science of Forests, Climate Regulation, and Carbon Storage.’

Offered through the MSU Forest Carbon and Climate Program (FCCP), the ‘Physical Science of Forests, Climate Regulation, and Carbon Storage’ course will provide foundational and advanced knowledge in the physical science of forest carbon.

The course is organized into five modules, including 1) Carbon Cycle and Storage, 2) Humans, the Global Carbon Cycle, and Terrestrial Sinks, 3) Forest Ecosystems and Carbon Storage, 4) Forest Ecosystem Carbon Pools and Fluxes, and 5) Disturbances and their Carbon Impact.  The course will include presentations, quizzes, links to external resources, and suggested further reading.

Course content is designed with natural resource professionals, extension agents, and landowners in mind. However, all interested parties are encouraged to apply – $199 for SAF members and $249 for non-members. Course topics are interdisciplinary, and learning outcomes are intended to be impactful across a variety of fields.

Please refer to www.ForestEd.org for the latest info on this, and other upcoming educational resources.

Presentations covered: CAL FIRE’s Forest Management Task Force, the California Board of Forestry’s Vegetation Management Program, Wildland Urban Interface policy/fire-resistant community planning, fire safe building design, and a case study of the Woolsey Fire.

Please feel free to download slides from the presentations: