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Webinar: Pre-planning for fire operations and response - PODs

The Presentation

Are you curious about how land managers plan for wildfire risk in their forest treatments or how fire managers figure out how to respond when a wildfire is actively burning? If so, please join FAC NM for a 60-minute webinar where speakers Kit O’Connor and Tyler Beeton will discuss a powerful mapping and pre-planning tool called Potential Operational Delineations, or PODs. PODs incorporates a risk management approach, local knowledge of the land, and existing barriers to fire to develop logical landscape-scale wildfire response options before fires spark. Register now to learn about how this tool is being used to plan for forest treatments and wildfire response across the landscape. You can attend the webinar via Zoom, or tune in on the FACNM Facebook Live page.

The Speakers

Headshot of Kit O'Connor in a green jacket and backpack in a snow-packed fire burn scar

Kit O’Connor, Research Ecologist, USDA Rocky Mountain Research Station - Human Dimensions Program: Wildfire Risk Management Science Team
Kit’s primary research interest is in bridging the human and ecosystem dimensions of fire management; including the use of pre-fire planning and operational decision support analytics to promote ecosystem restoration and resilience, safe and effective suppression response, and sustainable forest and fire management systems. Kit is an analytics lead for the National Risk Management Assistance Program for large wildfire management and a core member of the PODs strategic fire planning team. The team is currently working with more than 60 national forests, three states and, numerous other public and private land managers to develop and implement sustainable fire management plans. Originally from Edmonds, WA, Kit has a B.S. in Entomology from Penn State University, M.S. in Biology from The University of Quebec at Montreal, and a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management from The University of Arizona. He is recipient of the 2019 RMRS Science Delivery Award and 2020 forest Service Deputy Chief’s Award for Science Delivery. Kit lives in Missoula, Montana where he enjoys trail running, mountain biking, and family campouts with his wife, daughters, and three dogs.

More on Kit’s research and work can be found here.

Headshot of Tyler Beeton smiling for the camera standing in front of a red brick wall

Tyler Beeton, Research Associate III, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI)
Tyler is a collaborative decision-support program manager, which includes managing, contributing to, and evaluating collaborative adaptive management processes with project partners and stakeholders. He leads social science assessments of landscape-scale collaborative forestry projects, coordinates and facilitates Potential Operational Delineation (PODs) workshops and evaluates how PODs and Risk Management Assistance products are used in incident and non-incident management contexts. Tyler holds an M.A. in anthropology, and he is working toward a PhD in Ecology and Human-Environment Interactions at Colorado State University.

More on Tyler’s research can be found here.

PODs logo

Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) was co-developed by the Rocky Mountain Research Station Wildfire Risk Management Science (WRMS) Team to pre-plan for fire and to give land managers a formal process for developing landscape-scale wildfire response options before fires start. PODs are spatial units or containers defined by potential control features, such as roads and ridge tops, within which relevant information on forest conditions, ecology, and fire potential can be summarized.

Earlier Event: May 4
Webinar: Community-based Wildfire Risk Reduction
Later Event: July 2
Calf Canyon/Hermit's Peak Volunteer Work Days
The GSFFC is a coalition of public and private organizations. The GSFFC is not a subdivision of the State of New Mexico, as defined in the state’s Open Meetings Act, §§ 10-15-1 to 10-15-4 NMSA 1978. Although federal agencies participate in the GSFFC, the Coalition is not a federal advisory board and was not created by a federal agency, as defined by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5.U.S.C. app. 2, §§ 1 to 16 (2012). The GSFFC operates informally to support its partners, and is not incorporated as a non-profit, 501(C)(3), partnership, or other legal status.