CA Klamath-Siskiyou Fire Learning Network

Partners from across the Klamath-Siskiyou bioregion have been grappling with the challenges of restoring resilience to our forest ecosystems for nearly two decades.  The California Klamath-Siskiyou (CKS) Fire Learning Network (FLN), formed as a project of the The Nature Conservancy’s US Fire Learning Network and Hayfork’s Watershed Research & Training Center, is intended to serve as a new forum for collaboration, coordination, and cooperation for stakeholders, planners and managers from across the CKS region.

The CKS FLN will serve as a venue for improving landscape-scale planning, implementation, and peer networking, helping to scale up strategies to protect and restore the ecological and human communities of the region through ecologically and socially appropriate ecosystem restoration and sustainable stewardship of natural resources.

CKS FLN partners and stakeholders include:

• Local counties and communities, Tribes, Fire Safe Councils, and Watershed Councils
• Federal Agencies, Forest Service Region 5, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath NF, Bureau of Land Mgt., Natural Resource Conservation Service, Resource Conservation Districts, National Park Service
• State Agencies, CalFire and Dept of Forestry, State Water Board, Air Quality Mgt. District l, Dept. of Fish and Game
• Local and regional conservation and environmental groups
• Regional Academic Institutions and Cooperative Extension
• Forest industry, contractors and businesses 

During 2009 the CKS FLN will host at least one region-scale collaborative meeting, partner in the formation of the Northwest California Prescribed Fire Council (NWCAPFC), and help to sponsor at-least two CKS FLN landscapes in receiving training in and initiating Conservation Action Plans.

The first event, scheduled for July 8^th-9^th in Weaverville, CA, is a conference titled the CKS FLN "State of our Forests".

The “State of our Forests” conference will be a two-day event building on past cooperation and partnership in the region, and on shared-learning opportunities such as last year’s "Klamath Fire Ecology Symposium" convened by the Mid Klamath Watershed Council in Orleans, CA. Topics will include:

• Sharing learning from the 2008 wildfires of the region

• Exploring our current scientific understanding of regional fire ecology in the context of forest and fire management, climate and ecosystem services.

• Sharing examples of existing and emerging approaches to landscape-scale forest and fire planning that are being, or could be, applied in the Klamath-Siskiyou to yield better conservation and community outcomes.

• Exploring opportunities for stronger partnership and collaboration in upcoming forest and fire planning efforts.

• Setting partnership goals for future planning, development and networking opportunities in the CKS region through the CKS FLN.

• The focus of the conference will be to engage partners of the CKS region in landscape scale discussions and unite the geographically and jurisdictionally isolated groups with common ecological goals.

The kick-off meeting for the NWCPFC will be held at Humboldt State University in Arcata on November 13, 2009.  The work of the NWCPFC will focus on integration of prescribed fire into management strategies, increasing public knowledge and understanding of prescribed fire, and increasing training and capacity for implementing prescribed burning.  A steering committee is currently being convened, and more information will be available this summer.

If you are interested in finding out more about our group and our mission, please contact us.