The mission of the Fire Science Exchange Network and its member Exchanges according to the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP, our funder) is “to accelerate the awareness, understanding, adoption, and implementation of readily available wildland fire science information.” And to provide “the most relevant, current wildland fire science information to federal, state, local, tribal, and private stakeholders within ecologically similar regions. The network brings fire managers, practitioners, and scientists together to address regional fire management needs and challenges.”
To fulfill that mission, we need to know what your challenges and questions are. What are your wildland fire science needs or questions? Please take a moment to fill out this Google Form to let us know.
Part of our role is to serve as a conduit to researchers, to get your questions in front of them. We can be a kind of fire science matchmaker. Some questions may be very ecoregionally specific, while others may apply across many or all consortium footprints.
Sharing your local or ecoregionally specific questions can and should happen continuously. Questions beyond the ecoregion have a slightly different twist. JFSP conducts an annual request for questions from the exchanges to be included in a list of questions to be funded at the national level. That request is open right now. If you have questions or challenges that are likely to affect folks from other parts of the country, let us know. We’ll forward them to JFSP. The question we submit will be added to the list from across the country. The JFSP governing board will consider the questions and decide which they feel are most in need of research and, therefore, funding by JFSP in the next year.
Questions not selected for funding in this cycle will remain in the “hopper” for consideration in future years. So, while a particular question may not be deemed critical now, at some point later there may be enough support that it does rise to the top. Which means that it’s always worthwhile submitting your questions
The more we know about your questions, the better chance we have of getting to submit for consideration.
Other inquiries? Email us at tpos.firescience@wisc.edu