SOUTHERN MO TREX
A Prescription for Good Fire Training in Missouri expands the workforce for controlled burns
During the past 15 years, TREX events have provided a flexible framework for fire practitioners to add skills, connect with a growing network of colleagues and learn from one another. TNC helped create the TREX model with collaborators in the Fire Networks, a public-private partnership that is building fire-resilient landscapes and communities. It started in 2008 in the Great Plains with four events and 68 participants. By the end of 2023, an estimated 4,300 people had participated in at least one of more than 150 events. TREX has expanded beyond the U.S., including trainings in Spain, Portugal and South Africa. The model has been adopted by other organizations to run their own events. This spring’s training in the Ozarks is the second in Missouri funded through a Cohesive Strategy: Cross Boundary Grant, administered by the U.S. Forest Service. For two weeks, roughly 30 participants bunk at Camp Arrowhead, operated by the Boy Scouts of America’s Ozark Trails Council, near Marshfield. When the weather allows, the group splits into three teams to burn portions of the camp identified by the Scouts as well as prairies, forests and glades within a two-hour radius, selected from a list of requests from partners.
Low flames crawl across a forested hillside in the Ozarks while members of a newly assembled fire team advance along the perimeter. After several inhospitable days of spring weather, the conditions are nearly perfect for this prescribed fire training exchange (TREX) in southern Missouri. White smoke drifts slowly west, filtering sunlight across a floor of green moss, black ash and pops of orange flame—an idyllic scene reflected in a lake below. Jared Schindlbeck, a senior at Missouri State University, stands by with a drip torch and marvels at the situation. He is heading into spring break but took his professor’s suggestion to learn something new. “Initially, this wasn’t something I was that interested in,” says the 22-year-old wildlife conservation and management major. “Now, that I’m out here experiencing it, I think
maybe this is something I wouldn’t mind getting into.” Many of our ecosystems evolved with regular fire. Indigenous peoples developed controlled burning techniques over millennia, stewarding landscapes that range from prairie to forests. However, a century of U.S. policies sought to suppress all wildfires while oppressing Tribes. Excluding fire from the land has likely contributed to the rise of unnaturally intense wildfires. It also severed cultural practices and created a shortage of people skilled in prescribed fires. “The biggest barrier to putting more good fire on the ground is the gap in the workforce,” says Ryan Gauger, The Nature Conservancy’s fire and stewardship manager in Missouri. “TREX allows us to tap into the wisdom of a host of partners, learn from each other and work toward restoring a healthy relationship with fire in our communities.”
THIS PAGE TOP LEFT TREX participants monitor a prescribed fire in southern Missouri. © Doyle Murphy/TNC THIS PAGE TOP RIGHT Casey Bartlett of the Durango (Colo.) Fire District participates in her first TREX. © Doyle Murphy/TNC
8 MISSOURI : ACTION AND IMPACT
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