I recently had the pleasure of helping a group of emerging leaders in Spanish forestry advance their efforts to improve their country’s fire management practices. From October 16-20, 14 professional firefighters from Spain’s Ministry of the Environment temporarily left their posts battling forest fires and came to southeast Massachusetts, where the climate and vegetation are similar to parts of northern Spain. They wanted to learn how the Conservancy and our partners in Massachusetts use fire to enhance ecosystem health and biodiversity, and use those lessons to make changes to Spain’s suppression-focused fire management and planning processes.

These guys are already skilled and experienced firefighters and prescribed burners, highly motivated to use fire for the best ecological outcomes for their country.  What they don’t yet have in place are processes like Conservation Action Planning (CAP), and coordinated projects with academia, like the Joint Fire Science Program.  They were able to visit restoration sites in Massachusetts where management practices such as combining mechanical and prescribed burn treatments with varied seasonality are directly informed by CAP and collaborative fire ecology research.  We were also able to encourage them with our experience that by demonstrating safe and sound practices and sharing them with partners, they can leverage results on a much larger scale.

Leading the Spanish contingent was Jose Luis Duce, a Helitack Crew Leader and Burn Boss who spent eight days burning and touring grasslands with the Iowa chapter of The Nature Conservancy in April of this year. Jose also served as an instructor at an advanced Conservancy-sponsored prescribed fire training workshop in Kentucky prior to arriving in Massachusetts. (The photo above shows me and Jose celebrating at a local eatery one evening after winning an African geography contest. I'm on the right.)

On their first full day in Massachusetts, the group gave a presentation for some Conservancy staff and partners about the state of fire management in Spain, and their efforts to change the emphasis to burning for ecological objectives. We then spent several days touring fire restoration projects in Plymouth and on Martha’s Vineyard. From Massachusetts, the Spaniards traveled to New York to attend the New York Wildfire Academy through the end of the month.

Our visitors told me that they got what they were looking for with this trip, and they returned home energized and better positioned to advocate for reforms. I think the big achievement from the trip was a chance for the Spanish to see a different way of doing business, and then talk about it in-depth among themselves, with input along the way from us. Jose told me that they made some philosophical breakthroughs on this trip.

You might be wondering, what did we gain through this experience? This group definitely inspired us with their high motivation and willingness to stretch their perspectives. And they showed us different ways to use some of the suppression tools we already have in Massachusetts to get quicker results.

Jeremy Bailey with the North America Region Fire Training Program is the one who put Jose in touch with me initially. Jeremy also provided financial support for the event. The connection with Spain’s Ministry of the Environment came through Jeremy’s partnerships with the University of Idaho, College of Natural Resources, with whom he’s working to create professional development opportunities for fire managers and natural resource specialists.

Over this winter, Jose and his colleagues will select a region of Spain in which to demonstrate conservation planning with a focus on fire management. They will also reach out to Spanish research institutions to explore collaborative efforts that can inform future management. It’s possible they’ll decide to tackle improving habitat for the critically endangered Iberian lynx; burning can promote scrub habitat, favoring rabbits, a preferred prey for the lynx. As this pioneering group makes progress, they will invite Conservancy staff to visit their demonstration sites and help them expand their impact.