Sedgwick Reserve hosted an annual Santa Barbara Prescribed Burn Training Exchange (TREX)
Sedgwick Reserve hosted a third annual Santa Barbara TREX, a prescribed burn training exchange November 9th – 18th, 2024. After eight months of preparation and planning, weather conditions were just right to burn on Friday November 15th. Santa Barbara County Fire and California State Parks fire fighter stood by as contingency crews as the Burn Boss, Sarah Gibson, orchestrated 12 members of the incident command team, 44 trainees, and a 56 member contingency crew to execute a controlled burn of 16 acres of coastal sage scrub and oak woodland habitat. Researchers from seven universities, and research institutions, including NASA and The Desert Research Institute (DRI) observed and collected data during the burn. In total, 54 organizations participated in the event; learning together and sharing information and resources.
The overall objectives of the burn were:
- Reduce fuels next to homes and structures
- Provide education and training opportunities
- Facilitate indigenous and cultural activities
- Research the physical and ecological effects of fire
- Reintroduce small scale low intensity burns to the ecosystem
The training activities support the State of California goals to upskill a workforce to conduct 400,000 acres of prescribed burns per year (California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force 2022).
Of the 44 trainees in attendance, 10 were indigenous practitioners or affiliated with cultural burning. Indigenous participation was supported by an Indigenous Burner Stipend Program. Support for Sedgwick staff was provided by a grant from SDSU’s Collaboration of Native Nations Climate Transformations & Stewardship (CNNCTS) Program. This collaboration facilitated participation with the Native Coast Action Network, which were an integral part of the educational planning. Trainees indicated a strong interest in cultural burning. The Native Coast Action Network organized several cultural burning educational modules and a field trip to visit the Lake Fire scar.
Prescribed burning is a powerful tool to prevent wildfires and provides unique research opportunities to study fire science and ecology. Sedgwick supports researchers studying aspects of fire science and facilitates research projects on:
- Fire Ecology: Investigations focus on how fires interact with species and ecosystems, including fuel dynamics, fire behavior, and ecological impacts.
- Fuels and Fire Behavior: Research into the characteristics of combustible materials and their influence on fire dynamics.
- Restoration and Remediation: Studies aimed at rehabilitating fire-affected areas and evaluating methods for ecosystem restoration.
- Remote Sensing: Utilizing advanced technologies to monitor fire conditions and behavior.
- Meteorology: Research into the importance of heatwaves amongst different fire severities and impacts of the fire on energy budgets.
- Hill Slope Hydrology and Geomorphology: Examining how fire impacts water flow and landscape changes.
- Biogeochemistry and Soil Science: Analyzing the effects of fire on soil properties and biogeochemical cycles.
A full list of research supported by Sedgwick Reserve can be found here.
The TREX was organized in collaboration with:
- California State Parks Natural Resources Division
- CalPoly Swanton Pacific Ranch’s Fuels and Vegetation Education (FAVE) program
- Climate Science Alliance
- La Kretz Research Center at Sedgwick Reserve
- Los Padres National Forest Santa Barbara Ranger District
- Native Coast Action Network
- Santa Barbara County Fire Department
- Santa Barbara Fire Safe Council
- The Nature Conservancy Dangermond Preserve
