IAWF Board represents membership

             

Dr. Gavriil Xanthopoulos of Athens, Greece, represented IAWF at the closing roundtable meeting of project Fire Paradox in February. The Global Fire Monitoring Centre hosted the meeting jointly with the Central European Regional Office of the European Forest Institute, both based in Freiburg, Germany. This was the final meeting of European wildland fire professionals and academic representatives for this project, which sought to investigate the use of prescribed fire as a proactive tool in reducing wildfire risk. Fire Paradox was formed from a partnership of 17 countries. Xanthopoulos also represented IAWF as a presenter at the recent Aerial Firefighting Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Dan Bailey of Missoula, Mont., represented our membership at several events during February and March, including an international meeting in Washington, D.C., in February with various embassy staff on the use and effectiveness of building, fire and wildland-urban interface codes and how to improve use and implementation in other countries.

He also attended a building product industry meeting in Washington, D.C., on the WUI with key national stakeholders. His goal was to understand their perspectives on the role of industry in mitigating the social, economic and environmental issues of wildfire. The output will be used to determine the best approach to bringing affordable technology to improve structure ignition resistance.

Finally, Bailey met with key stakeholders who announced in March that, based on the recommendations of the 2008 National Blue Ribbon Panel on the WUI, the National Wildland Urban Interface Council would be established. This coalition includes more than 200 individuals, organizations and agencies from the national, state and local levels. The kick-off meeting will be held in November in Washington, D.C. IAWF is one of the founding members of this effort. Find out more at www.nationalwuicouncil.org.

David Moore of Glendale, Ohio, represented IAWF at the February 2010 Firehouse World Conference in San Diego. He also has represented IAWF at wildland fire refresher courses in Ohio and Kentucky.

Gene Rogers of Klamath Falls, Ore., represented IAWF at the recent Fire Behavior Decision Support Workshop in Redmond, Ore., which was attended by other fire and fuels managers, meteorologists and line officers.

Dr. Ron Steffens of Poutney, Vt., represented IAWF at the Fire History and Climate Change Synthesis Workshop, sponsored by the Joint Fire Science Program and held in collaboration with the Fire and Climate Science Project. The February workshop was coordinated by the EastFIRE Laboratory of George Mason University and the University of Arizona, and hosted at the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center in Tucson.