Planning: FIRE-PLAN: Building Wildland Fire Science Capacity in Alaska Through The University of Alaska Fairbanks Rural Campuses

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

Alaska's landscape has a complex wildland fire history that needs a dynamic fire management plan. The participation of rural and Alaska Native residents in fire science research, fire management, and on fire crews is uniquely critical in Alaska, given their intimate knowledge of the lands on which they live. This project will facilitate a series of "knowledge exchange" sessions within the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) College of Rural and Community Development at the Interior Alaska Campus in Fairbanks and the Kuskokwim Campus in Bethel. These sessions will explore 1) the foundational knowledge of wildfire, 2) the current strategies to adapt to a changing wildfire environment, and 3) the vision for education and career pathways of the future. The conversations facilitated by this planning project will form the building blocks for meaningful, long-lasting partnerships between Alaskan communities threatened by wildfire, academic research units, and state/federal agency partners. Processes and outcomes identified through these knowledge exchange sessions will be relevant for strategies addressing the wildfire-related workforce shortages occurring across Alaska. As a minority-serving institution within an NSF EPSCoR jurisdiction, UAF is ideally placed to champion this initiative. This project will facilitate a series of "knowledge exchange" sessions within the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) College of Rural and Community Development at the Interior Alaska Campus in Fairbanks and the Kuskokwim Campus in Bethel. These sessions will explore 1) the foundational knowledge of wildfire, 2) the current strategies to adapt to a changing wildfire environment, and 3) the vision for education and career pathways of the future. The conversations facilitated by this planning project will form the building blocks for meaningful, long-lasting partnerships between Alaskan c The broad focus at each campus will be tailored for co-production from the different participants at each location, and each project year will include a meeting at each of the two campuses. The first-year sessions will focus on exploring Indigenous knowledge and integration into wildfire research, wildfire management, and fire fighting in Alaska, while the second-year sessions will build on feedback and knowledge exchanges made during Year 1. From these sessions, collaborative projects to advance wildland fire science will likely be identified. This proposal addresses two of the five emergent themes identified in NSF 22-122: the incorporation of social dimensions into wildland fire science research, and the development of convergent education to generate the researchers and practitioners of the future.This project is jointly funded by the GEO/Geoscience Opportunity for Leadership Development (GOLDEN) Program, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Program, and the EDU/Tribal College Undergraduate Program (TCUP). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.