Burning from the ground up: the structure and impact of Prescribed Burn Associations in the United States

Alison Deak; Jennifer E. Fawcett; Lenya Quinn-Davidson; Christopher Adlam; John R. Weir; Jeffery Stackhouse

doi:10.1071/WF24178

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Previous Contents Vol 34(3)

Burning from the ground up: the structure and impact of Prescribed Burn Associations in the United States

Alison Deak

^A ^* , Jennifer E. Fawcett

^B , Lenya Quinn-Davidson ^C , Christopher Adlam ^D , John R. Weir ^E and Jeffery Stackhouse ^C

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, 5009 Fairgrounds Drive, Mariposa, CA 95338, USA.

^B College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.

^C Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Eureka, CA, USA.

^D Forestry & Natural Resources Extension Service, Oregon State University, Central Point, OR, USA.

^E Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.

^* Correspondence to: aldeak@ucanr.edu

International Journal of Wildland Fire 34, WF24178 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF24178

Submitted: 23 October 2024 Accepted: 14 February 2025 Published: 11 March 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background

To combat losses and threats from fire exclusion and extreme wildfire events, communities in the United States are increasingly self-organizing through locally led Prescribed Burn Associations (PBAs) to plan and implement prescribed burns on private lands.

Aim

Our study aimed to document the expansion of PBAs and provide insight into their structure, function, and impacts.

Methods

Leaders from 135 known PBAs across the United States were invited to participate in an online survey.

Key results

Survey results demonstrate a widespread emergence of PBAs in the United States, successfully mobilizing thousands of volunteers to collectively burn more than 34,000 ha annually.

Conclusions

PBAs demonstrated that they are reducing myriad barriers to prescribed burning while meeting their goals to broaden access to the use of fire using a neighbors-helping-neighbors model to provide training, pool resources, and reduce the costs of prescribed burning. By including volunteers with diverse levels of experience and backgrounds, PBAs are changing the narrative of who has access to the use of fire.

Implications

The adaptability of the PBA model to local contexts provides an alternative model of community-led, non-agency-based fire management critical to advancing the pace and scale of restoration needed in fire-adapted ecosystems.

Keywords: beneficial burning, controlled burns, fire, organization, Prescribed Burn Association, prescribed fire, private lands, stewardship, volunteers.

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