Quarterly Michigan Prescribed Fire Council Steering Committee Meeting
September 5th, 2023
11am – 2pm ET
Hybrid (Teams + in person @ Escanaba Bio Innovation Center)
Welcome and Introductions Bruce Miller TNC, Steve Woods - Huron Pines, Dave Borneman – private contractor, Amy Frye USDA-NRCS, Jarod Reibel – Ed Lowe Foundation, Mark Sargent, Glenn Palmgren, Zach Parmentier Hiawatha USFS, Mike Smalligan, Vic Bogosian Pokagon Band of Potawatomi NR, Craig Maier, Megan Hoffman MDNR Huron Pines Americorp member FRD, Eric Britzike USFS, Jack McGowan-Stinski LSFC, Nathan Holoubeck - WPFC, Todd Aschenbach – GVSU, Michele Richards - MIANG Fort Custer
General Updates
· NE-MW Regional Rx Fire Science and Management Workshop in Madison, WI: Aug 29-31, 2023
MI PFC did a $500 sponsorship to get our name out to the guests and support the collaboration efforts.
Amazing event, lots of connections, Tribal centered. 33 states attended. Lots of great talk about a whole variety of things fire. Networking was super helpful. Steve discussed with George Jensen and Zach regarding administration of MPFC and there are two different answers. Zach said we should talk about it. See if there’s a chance for some alignment. The idea of a non-profit associated with the Fire Council, people thought it was a good idea to give us access to funding and have continuity over time. The perfect solution was not yet found. Forest service is looking to treat 50 million acres in the next ten years, but they need partnerships. Cultural use of fire was a huge takeaway. How much recent science and studies have been going on to figure out fire history in the east. Hiawatha and Ottawa doing a lot with that with agreements with Tribal Communities up the in the UP. USFS can’t do this alone, it has to be a team effort. Planning team looking for suggestions on what to change or keep.
· Administrative rates update:
o Currently pay $60/hour for admin work. Newly proposed $30/hr for up to 10 hours a month is the short-term fix for reducing the cost of our administration. Will reassess in one year August 2024.
· Upcoming MPFC leadership opportunity:
o In February Jarod Reibel will be the chair, and we will be looking for a new vice chair. Planting seeds for finding new candidates for the Vice Chair position.
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· Forest to MI Faucet project:
o MI DNR is acquiring a grant to show the impacts of forests on drinking water quality. Perhaps we can work together on this project. It’s focused on water quality, but opportunities to explore fire as a land management tool is providing water protection as well as ecological integrity. $50,000 over three years for training and talking about prescribed fire and its positive impact on forests and water. Private lands focus. Federal dollars through forest stewardship program. Trainings to increase prescribed fire on private lands. Negotiating with NFWF for funds. Contract with MPFC starting in October 1 for three years, related to training and technical assistance to private landowners. Mike Smalligan needs match. Use of fire foam, fire breaks, lots of overlap with water issues. MIARNG has match. This can cover admin costs, too. Federal funding hitch, this is a congressional earmark. She’s trying to save Lake Erie. Can only use south of the 43rd parallel. Emphasis on this region, southern half of lower peninsula. It would be valuable for MPFC to have a synthesis of the research between prescribed fire and water quality. Mike has other projects in northern MI. USFS is exploring the connection between wildfire versus prescribed fire and its impacts on water quality. Maximum fire return intervals of 15 down to 6 years, tied to cultural burning materials at the conference. Bay Mills and Sioux Tribes among others. They’ve done an adaptive fire management plan with Tribal members. Many medicinal plants that live in the peat and pine island ecosystems that were fire adapted.
o Jessica Miesel might give us a primer on research and where to start on this topic. Jack says there’s a synthesis of the fire history research forthcoming.
o Vic down in Pokagon land that has a consultant with a minor botany celebrity. Not a plant that he doesn’t know. Fall burns, Native Americans burned everywhere they could as often as they could. Pre-European presence, forest biomass was 50% reduced. Most of our southern forests are now not only mesic, but increases water runoff instead of aquifer research.
o Strategic plan will talk more about human health, a note about pfas foam and firefighter safety.
Updates from Subcommittees
· Burning Issues 2024 Planning Updates (Jarod Reibel)
o Moving it to FCTC, Feb 6&7, save the date out in a week or so. Integrating with KNC Damien Panek as Terry Todd speaker on 8 Feb.
o Keep it at same price as last year, $90, with discounts for students and potentially others.
o Some of our topics will overlap with NE-MW Workshop, but that’s not a bad thing. Cultural Burning (Ferin from NEMW), Objectives and Outcomes, Canadian wildfire smoke, fire and wildlife (bats and herps), and invasive species case studies. Brainstormed potential speakers and starting outreach to those folks.
· Strategic Planning Updates (Mark Sargent)
o Had three meetings via web-conference. Evaluated last strategic plan. Brainstormed new ideas and concepts. Feel it’s ready for review. Used a jam board to help develop different ideas and concerns from the group. Then we did live editing.
o Not sure of what process to gather input from other folks. Moderate sized group or send it out to all the membership.
o Group reviewed briefly all together during meeting.
o Creating a culture of prescribed fire strikes a chord – the resurgent focus on Tribal lands. Replace creating with restoring. Distinction between cultural burning and prescribed fire (under vision). ...continue a culture of prescribed fire and embrace cultural burning knowledge...
o Values – add environmental to ecological in second bullet
o Do we want to consider that it’s not just beneficial but essential to meet our long-term ecological needs.
o Comments and input would be incorporated in November, and in December present a final document for approval and adoption, then February present to the entire MPFC at the annual meeting.
Present update of Strat plan to steering committee Sept 5th
Send proposed strat plan to all member for review and input Sept/Oct
Bird Hunting Season Sept/Oct
Edit proposed strat plan Nov
Present final proposed strat plan to steering committee/or subset Dec 5th
Present Strat plan to all members Feb 2024
Click button to view in new window or download, send comments to Mark Sargent
o Curious about the sub-committee(s) for safety and research? Or two new subcommittees? If those tasks might be functions of the existing committees or something. explanation of need and purpose would help. Do we have the willpower and strength to broaden that given the level of effort we currently count on. Maybe safety ends up being a function of training and quals. Fire Science Consortia does the research portion – is there a different function we would serve? Do a synthesis ourselves? Having a forum for discussing research?
· Training and/or TREX Updates (Steve Woods/John Taylor/Michele Richards)
o Training side – one of the important parts of facilitating TREX and all training is to have clarity in who does what and participates on what. MOA fully drafted. The idea says that we all agree training is important to support prescribed fire and we agree to collaborate to increase the amount of training. Provides people cover who field questions about whether or not their agency supports their time to serve as cadre or send students to training. Defines what responsibilities, minimum training standards, etc.
o TREX had a couple of planning calls, Michele and Steve discussing with TEA. Cleared the air on some things and moving in a good direction. They heard us that it was necessary for us to have continuity with their staff participation, and we are filling some of those issues with having Steve manage some of the networking responsibilities.
o Three 130/190 trainings in northern Michigan in the next two years will be offered via Huron Pines. Mt. Pleasant, Traverse City, and either Cheboygan or Alpena. First one would be in the first week of April.
o Fire collaborative has an MOU circulating, initial review Sag-Chip Tribe, Headwaters Collaborative and GTLC. Once signed by enough participants they will build mobile fire cache for use by signatories.
o Huron Pines hosting a workshop for peer-to-peer learning on fire in the jack pine ecosystem. Multiple agency partners participating. Van tour. Should start to set in motion of doing a TREX in northern lower in two years.
o Huron Pines asked their invasive species lead to host a workshop with all the other CISMA coordinators in MI focused on using fire for invasive species control. Hungry for something besides spraying chemicals all the time. Lots of talk about integrated management but not a lot of using those tools. Hopefully involving an invasive species burn. Jack can provide old PPTs and other docs for this topic.
· Education/Outreach Updates (Leadership role vacant)
o Vacant at the moment. If interested in leading or ideas for outreach contact info@firecouncil.org
Partner Updates:
· WI Prescribed Fire Council (Nathan Holoubek representing)
o Forest Service and TNC grants will allow them to hire a program specialist to hire staff to take on aspirations. Working on training and prescribed fire/burn boss certification duties. Potentially looking at a very part time executive director, too.
o MOU signed with NRCS
· Tallgrass and Oak Savanna Fire Science Consortium
o HANDS-ON FIRE SCIENCE METHODS WORKHOP April 7-12, 2024 round three of these workshops can be found here: http://www.tposfirescience.org/fire-sci-methods-workshop
Financial Report (Amy on behalf of Stephanie)
Project summary of funds spent from White Oak Initiative. Grant completed but $720.00 paid ahead for admin time to work on a S-130/S-190 Field day training in Spring 2024 (on deferred revenue contract at KNC).
$14,455.11 current MPFC bank account balance.
Do we start offering more training to increase revenue/use grant funds? More discount rates for students to widen reach/work towards accessibility opportunities?
Upcoming Events
MPFC Annual Meeting and Burning Issues Workshop in Feb 2024, stay tuned for registration and details coming in next few months.
Kalamazoo Nature Center “Rekindling” Fire exhibit still open to public until May 2024
Open Floor
Someday have a place to put all our burns in a map. MDNR has some opening for federal data. Not sure if that going to be something that will be robust yet. Work is ongoing with this. Glenn will update as progress is made.
Conclusion
Next Quarterly Meeting will be:
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Ed Lowe in Cassopolis, MI
