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The Fire Program uses outreach, education, and engagement to foster fire-adapted communities and resilient landscapes to wildfire through place-based partnerships. A team of six wildland fire specialists help seek regionally relevant solutions that make sense in the diverse ecological and social contexts of their areas.
Broad program goals
Resilient communities and effective organizations: Where whole communities have the capacity, resources, and tools they need to cope with and adapt to stress and disturbance while maintaining key functions and values.
Cultures of adaptation: Where locally adapted solutions support people’s values and ecosystem health and ongoing engagement, learning, and relationships among people, place, and fire support desired fire cultures.
Fire-adapted ecosystems: Where appropriate patterns of wildfire occur and support key functions and processes in a diversity of ecosystems.
OSU Extension Fire Program Theory of Change
Fostering fire-adapted communities and resilient landscapes through place-based partnerships.
Our goals
Resilient communities and effective organizations
Cultures of adaptation
Fire-adapted ecosystems
Strategy
Assess conditions and build shared visions
What we do
- Sense needs, assets, and opportunities
- Conduct assessments and build knowledge
- Support partners and communities in creating shared visions, plans, and processes
Examples of desired outcomes
Plans and actions for fire resilience include, inform, and engage the values of whole communities and are responsive to local needs.
Strategy
Support equity and environmental justice
What we do
- Seek to understand power and resource differences
- Recognize and celebrate diverse assets and ways of working
- Partner ethically with Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples on their terms
- Ensure accessibility of programs and resources
- Seek multiple forms of equity (procedural, distributive, recognitional)
- Support communities that have not been well-served by traditional approaches to wildfire preparedness, response, and recovery
Examples of desired outcomes
Relationships and trust are strong within and across a diversity of communities, and resources are tangibly invested towards equity and environmental justice goals.
Strategy
Provide education, outreach, and engagement
What we do
- Develop and implement learning opportunities that are mutual, experiential, engaging, and connect people to each other and the land
- Contribute or connect to relevant expertise in fire ecology, land management, social-organizational processes, and educational design
- Align partners with similar educational goals/offerings
- Build community and organizational capacity, not just knowledge
- Support action and outcomes from this learning
Examples of desired outcomes
Partners work together at all scales through efforts that are coordinated and science-based; and as a result, knowledge, connections, and resources increase among the communities we serve.
Strategy
Scale and diffuse knowledge and practice
What we do
- Foster peer learning, sharing, and connections across levels
- Support efforts in being strategic by working at appropriate scales
- Create publications and presentations that document and mobilize learning
- Advance awareness of the needs and assets of place-based partnerships
Examples of desired outcomes
Practice, management, and policy are aligned to support resilience, adaptation, and fire-adapted cultures at all levels.
Fire-adapted communities
Wildfires make a profound impact on people, land, animals, the environment and the economy. As the population continues to increase, homes and communities expand to new rural boundaries and fires become more a part of the changing landscape. Oregonians are faced with the challenges of preparing, preventing, and recovering from wildfires.
A fire-adapted community is a human community consisting of informed and prepared people (including homeowners, landowners, land managers, fire departments, businesses, and more!) collaboratively planning and taking action to safely coexist with wildland fire.
The Forestry & Natural Resources Extension's Fire Program works to foster fire-adapted communities through outreach, education and engagement.
Resilient landscapes
Resilient landscapes are crucial for both people and wildlife. Here’s why:
Biodiversity and Habitats: Resilient landscapes host healthy, diverse habitats, and migratory corridors for wildlife. They provide essential resources like clean air, clean water, and recreational opportunities.
Climate Change Adaptation: These landscapes can adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change. As our climate shifts, resilient areas help species persist and maintain ecological balance.
Community Protection: Natural lands in resilient landscapes absorb floodwaters, buffer homes from wildfires, and protect communities. They play a vital role in safeguarding our environment and well-being.
Identity and Sense of Place: Understanding a landscape’s resilience helps maintain its character and diversity, which are essential for national and local identity and a sense of place.
Fostering resilient landscapes is critical for ecological health, human well-being, and a sustainable future.
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Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Institute for Natural Resources (INR) -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis -
Photo: Emily Jane Davis
We acknowledge that Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, is located within the traditional homelands of the Mary's River or Ampinefu Band of Kalapuya. Following the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855, Kalapuya people were forcibly removed to reservations in Western Oregon. Today, living descendants of these people are a part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. All Extension programming throughout the state of Oregon happens on traditional homelands. To learn more, visit OSU's Land Acknowledgement webpage.