The October Driptorch Digest is Now Available

The much-anticipated Congressional Wildfire Commission Report was submitted to Congress on September 27. The report reframes the wildfire crisis as an issue of public safety and public health, not just land management. It includes 148 recommendations intended to help lead the nation toward a different relationship with wildfire that focus around seven themes:

Urgent New Approaches
Supporting Collaboration
Shifting from Reactive to Proactive
Enabling Beneficial Fire
Supporting and Expanding the Workforce
Modernizing Tools for Informed Decision-making
Investing in Resilience

With fall officially upon us, the South is moving into the dormant season, an important time for burning in many parts of the region. As you begin to watch for burn windows, check out the handy checklists in the new Prescribed Burning in the Southern Region to make sure you've covered everything you need for your dormant season burns. Here are the general steps:

Planning the Burn

Develop a burn plan
Determine personnel and equipment needs
Develop a contingency plan
Obtain fire and safety equipment
Make safety considerations
Manage liability

Conducting the Burn

Review the burn plan
Check firebreaks
Monitor weather
Develop smoke management plan
Walk the burn unit looking for hazards
Assemble and check equipment
Organize personnel
Notify neighbors

Your Insights are Requested for a Research Project on RX Fire MOUs
1. Are you interested in developing a new MOU for prescribed burning but don't know where to start? Or, have you been involved in developing a prescribed fire MOU in the past and are willing to answer questions about your participation? If so, please join this study! Researchers at the University of Florida are leading a study to help provide recommendations for creating prescribed fire MOUs in the future. Please contact Tyler Carney at tcarney96@ufl.edu with questions or interest in participating in the study. *As they near the end of data collection, the researchers are particularly interested in hearing from folks in Alabama and Mississippi*

Real-time soil moisture sensors are playing an increasingly important role in prescribed burn planning. As practitioners deal with narrowing burn windows and nuanced problems like duff accumulation, detailed information about current conditions like soil moisture provide valuable insights that guide their decisions around implementation. University of Alabama - Huntsville published a story of a recent example of this in which data soil moisture sensors signaled early drought conditions and contributed to the call to cancel a burn. NOAA provides several useful tools for assessing soil moisture in your area.

USDA Forest Service Inflation Reduction Act Forest Landowner Support

Funding available towards two objectives:

Support the participation of underserved forest landowners in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience
Support the participation of forest landowners who own less than 2,500 acres of forestland in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience

Award amount: Up to $25,000,000
Application Deadlines:

October 21, 2023 (proposal budgets $2,000,000 - $25,000,000)
Rolling basis, quarterly (all other proposals)

The Driptorch Digest is distributed by NC State University as a project of the Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) Prescribed Fire Working Group.

NC State University promotes equal opportunity and prohibits discrimination and harassment based upon one’s race; color; religion (including belief and non-belief); sex, including but not limited to pregnancy, childbirth, or other related medical condition, parenting, and sexual harassment; sexual orientation; actual or perceived gender identity; age; national origin; disability; veteran status; or genetic information.