The National Association of State Foresters is now accepting pre-orders for a customized cover of its best-selling Smokey Bear pocket planner. The 2017 cover features a portion of the classic artwork "Nature's Gold Medal Winner" by Virginia artist Rudolph Wendelin. Be a champion for wildfire prevention and customize the 2017 Smokey Bear pocket planner for your outreach events. In [read more]
Along with its partners at the USDA Forest Service and the Ad Council, NASF is pleased to announce the 2016 National Smokey Bear Awards winners. Since 1957, this prestigious awards program has recognized organizations and individuals for outstanding service to prevent wildfires. The awardees have demonstrated significant impact at the national level (Gold), multi-state level (Silver), and statewide level [read more]
By Greg Pilchak On June 23rd, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing to receive testimony on the recent discussion draft entitled “Wildfire Budgeting, Response and Forest Management Act of 2016.” The hearing on the bill focused on three main issues: 1) the need to end “fire borrowing”; 2) the growing [read more]
The U.S. Forest Service announced that it has identified an additional 26 million trees dead in California since October 2015. These trees are located in six counties across 760,000 acres in the southern Sierra Nevada region of the state, and are in addition to the 40 million trees that died statewide from 2010 to October [read more]
Together with its partners in fire prevention, NASF is pleased to announce the launch of the new and improved smokeybear.com. Go ahead - click on over and check it out! Nearly nine out of every 10 wildfires in the United States are human-caused, which demonstrates one staggering fact: most of our nation's wildfires can be [read more]
In partnership with the Southeastern Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy Coordinator, the office of the Southern Regional Extension Forester (SREF) is pleased to announce the updated Southeastern Strategy website, now with new resources that serve to increase landscape resiliency and community protection and ensure a safe, effective and risk-based fire response. Southernwildfire.net provides wildland fire news, success stories, recommended activities, and [read more]
By Greg Pilchak On Wednesday, May 25th, leaders on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee released draft legislation whose goal is to improve wildfire budgeting and forest management. The bipartisan legislation is the culmination of recent Committee efforts to examine and find solutions to problems such as “fire borrowing,” the speed of environmental reviews, and fire suppression [read more]
By Greg Pilchak This Tuesday, May 24th, the House Appropriations Committee released the fiscal year 2017 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill (see page 84). This draft legislation includes funding for the USDA Forest Service and various other independent and related agencies. The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee marked up the bill on Wednesday, May 25th. [read more]
Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee and Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark yesterday sent a letter to congressional leaders urging Congress to end “fire borrowing" and provide the USDA Forest Service with the resources it needs to effectively improve forest health and respond to increasingly devastating wildfire seasons. In the past two years, Washington state has [read more]
Members of the National Association of State Foresters’ executive committee held Congressional briefings on May 4 to introduce decision makers to state Forest Action Plans and convey the importance of consulting these important documents when making forest management decisions. In attendance were key staff members from the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and member offices, USDA Forest [read more]
