BAR HARBOR, Maine - School will be back in session soon and, this fall, some middle-school students will be leaving their more traditional, indoor classrooms to explore and learn in a different setting - the great outdoors. They'll travel to Acadia National Park to learn about subjects ranging from marine and forest studies, to mapping and astronomy, with park rangers assisting their teachers.

It's a unique partnership between the National Park Service, Friends of Acadia and the retailer L.L. Bean. Georgiana Piete, a sixth-grade science teacher from Hampden, took a group to the park last fall and says the program enhanced the lessons she taught in class.

"It takes the classroom learning and relates it to the real world. They get to not just read about, or even look at pictures in books - they actually touch it, they feel it and it involves them."

Janet Wyper, community relations manager for L.L. Bean, says the Maine-based retailer was happy to participate with Acadia in the public-private partnership.

"Promoting the public's activities in our natural spaces, particularly those on federal and state parks - it was a no-brainer to hook up with something that was not only innovative, but good for everybody involved."

The other facet of the education partnership is Friends of Acadia, an independent nonprofit group working to protect and preserve the park. Marla O'Byrne, the group's chief executive officer, points out that, like many national parks, Acadia is under-funded. Private donations, which are matched by the federal government, are essential to its future.

"What we'd like to see is an effort to increase the opportunities for private donations to leverage additional funds from the federal government."

U.S. national parks are maintained with a combination of federal funds, grants and private donations, she explains. Currently, the park system is operating with a federal shortfall of $600 million.

The Acadia program is part of a national effort to add public-private funding partnerships to benefit both parks and students. Advocates are looking to Congress to authorize and continue funding such programs, so that students at Acadia and around the country can continue to participate in educational activities.



get more stories like this via email

State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


get more stories like this via email

A new study in the journal Nature Communications by Montana researchers said suppressing small wildfires is leading to larger, more intense and damaging blazes.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, about 98% of wildfires are fully suppressed before they grow to 100 acres; most of them within 72 hours. In Montana, the latest data show crews kept 95% of wildfires in Montana to no more than 10 acres in 2022.

Mark Kreider, a doctoral candidate in forest and conservation science at the University of Montana and co-author of the report, said the strategy leads to what is known as fire "suppression bias."

"Removing more of one type of fire than the other, what we're left with is bias towards the higher intensity fires, these more extreme fires," Kreider explained.

Montana state policy calls for crews to extinguish fires as quickly as possible, even small ones. Kreider pointed out researchers recommend letting low-intensity fires burn where possible to reduce the risk and damage potential for larger, hotter-burning and more catastrophic blazes.

Kreider acknowledged as the population grows along the urban-wildland interface, letting fires burn is not always possible, but argued it might be the best strategy for heading off catastrophic fires later.

"Especially in the western U.S. where people live close to forests, fire suppression is very important and we still must do it," Kreider noted. "But this research helps to show when possible in places where it's safe to do so, we really may benefit from allowing more low and moderate intensity fire to burn."

The National Interagency Fire Center said the number of acres scorched by wildfire has doubled since the 1980s, and the cost to battle the fires has risen to nearly $3 billion a year.


get more stories like this via email

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has awarded $3.1 million for 13 projects to reduce wildfire risk to communities and improve forest health.

The funding money is part of the $15 million Montana Forest Action Plan, which takes a big-picture approach to reducing the risk of wildfires.

Wyatt Frampton, deputy division administrator of forestry and trust lands for the Montana Department of Natural Resources, said the money will be used to foster fire-management cooperation between state and private landowners across 3,200 acres of forest.

"Through a variety of activities, such as prescribed fire, logging, mechanical thinning, hand activities as well as tree planting," Frampton outlined.

The 13 most recent restoration projects are spread across the state, including in Lewis and Clark County, the Bitterroot and the South Swan Valley.

Frampton said the DNR is aiming to create a cohesive fire-reduction plan across Montana's landscape, which has until now been inconsistent because of different sets of land-management practices.

"Right now when we see a patchwork of treatments across some of the landscapes in the state, from a fire-management perspective, it doesn't create a clean or effective barrier for trying to stop the fire in that area," Frampton explained. "Where, if we had a cohesive landscape-level treatment, that would help."

Frampton added having a statewide cohesive fire-management plan would also allow the DNR and other agencies to slow the spread of potentially destructive insects in Montana's forests.


get more stories like this via email