Collaborating on Post-Fire Research and Monitoring in Oregon

Large wildfires have landscape-level impacts that cross land management boundaries. However, formal networks facilitating collaborative post-fire research and monitoring efforts remain scarce. In 2020, five megafires (>100,000 acres) in western Oregon—known as the 2020 Labor Day Fires—burned more than 1.2 million acres of land, destroyed upwards of 5,000 homes and businesses, and resulted in the loss of human life. The 2020 wildfire season was the most destructive on record in Oregon. 

Following this season and at the behest of Oregon’s governor, several state and federal agencies (including representatives from the Northwest Climate Hub), universities, tribes, and other organizations, formed a collaborative to foster awareness of each other's activities and coordinate post-fire research and monitoring efforts. The purpose of this collaborative effort is to streamline resource allocation and promote collaboration among organizations involved in fire prevention, mitigation, restoration, research, and monitoring. 

The collaborative has already developed a Post-Fire Research and Monitoring Catalog. This resource helps practitioners locate ongoing scientific studies, identify the researchers involved, and understand the specific factors being measured.

Since 2021, the collaborative has created resources and hosted a symposium to increase post-fire research and monitoring collaboration across the state. The collaborative developed a Post-Fire Research and Monitoring Catalog, making it easy for practitioners to find where scientific information is being collected, identify who is collecting it, and understand the indicators being measured. The catalog provides critical information and identifies resource gaps in post-fire research and monitoring efforts, highlighting areas where partnerships can address the limitations of individual organizations. 

The collaborative also developed a Post-fire Research and Monitoring Playbook that outlines the post-fire priorities, work, and resources of different groups to promote collaboration. 

Additionally, the collaborative hosted the Oregon Post-Fire Research and Monitoring Symposium at Oregon State University on February 7^th through 9th, 2023. This event was organized and funded, in part, by the Northwest Climate Hub, which allowed for the symposium to be free for all attendees. The symposium focused on research and monitoring completed after the 2020 westside fires in Oregon. It provided an opportunity for natural resource professionals, science providers, policy makers, and others interested in this topic to connect. The symposium consisted of 38 speaker presentations, 45 poster presentations, and 3 panels. Approximately 750 participants attended some portion of the event, with nearly half attending in person. The Oregon Post-Fire Research and Monitoring Symposium: Abstract Compendium provides a summary of the symposium and includes the agenda, abstracts for each presentation, and overviews of the main topics discussed at the event.

Over the next three years, the collaborative seeks to expand networks, enhance our understanding of the impacts from the 2020 wildfires, and broaden science communication and delivery. To do this, the collaborative has formed topic area working groups (e.g., forests, water, geomorphology) to synthesize current work and knowledge from the 2020 Labor Day Fires and to conduct a gap analysis for the current state of post-fire research and monitoring networks across Oregon. Additionally, the collaborative plans to facilitate a future symposium in 2026 to focus on the implications of science for land stewardship and management. 

The collaborative and its efforts are supported by the USDA Northwest Climate Hub.