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Project ID:

25-3-1-2

Year:

2025

Date Started:

10/01/2025

Date Completed:

Title:

Great Basin Fire Science Exchange

Project Proposal Abstract:

Problem Statement
Wildfires present significant immediate and long-term challenges to Great Basin land management and local communities. Scientific research is continually adding to and updating the current state of knowledge on fuels, fire effects, and post-fire restoration. Keeping apprised and recognizing how best to apply this information is an additional task for already overloaded agency personnel and landowners. The Great Basin Fire Science Exchange (GBFSE) leverages long-standing partnerships and relationships and utilizes a variety of communication methods and tools to distill and deliver pre- and post-wildfire management information to the region’s management communities, landowners, and fire-focused NGOs.

Objectives
Our overarching objective is to ensure that land managers, practitioners, and stakeholders are aware of, can access, and know how to utilize important research findings and tools concerning wildfire, fuels management, and post-fire restoration. We also recognize that addressing land management challenges in the Great Basin requires back and forth communication and learning between research and management communities. We provide regular research alerts through our trusted websites, webinars, newsletters, and social media posts, while also providing opportunities and forums for our management and research communities to connect and build stronger relationships. In addition to our general program of managing websites, sending out regular newsletters and social media posts, regional conference attendance and networking, and training opportunities, specific objectives for FY26, 27, and 28 include:
• Planning and developing workshops to advance innovation through place-based partnerships
• Working to build tribal relationships in a way that is reciprocal and built on trust
• Providing field guidance to identify and protect old-growth pinyon-juniper stands from wildfire as one way to address Executive Order 14072, which addresses mature and old-growth forests
• Advancing development of a synthesis of state of the knowledge regarding sagebrush seed cycle and restoration
• Continuing to add synthesis reviews of western forb species useful to restoration practitioners
• Developing a GBFSE podcast to discuss land management issues, share success stories, summarize new, important research, and introduce new fire, fuels, and restoration products and tools.

Benefits
The GBFSE works across the science-practice interface to provide information and products that inform regional land management decision making. We are a nexus for operationalizing research and facilitating knowledge exchange between scientists, managers, landowners, and practitioners as prioritized in the “Integrating Modern Science and Technology” chapter (pp. 192-214) of the Report of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission created through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Our Great Basin region supports ecosystems identified in the report as vulnerable to type conversion in the absence of management interventions, which makes utilization of our communication tools and growing our existing management and research networks important to confronting the wildfire crisis. We highlight research that addresses science needs in the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy Actionable Science Plan and the 2015 Secretarial Order 3336 – Rangeland Fire Prevention, Management, and Restoration. Finally, we work with scientists and managers working to inform Wildfire Crisis Priority Landscape investments.

Principal Investigator:

Lisa M Ellsworth

Agency/Organization:

Oregon State University

Branch or Dept:

Department of Fisheries & Wildlife

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Agreements Contact	Jennifer A Bonk	University of Nevada-Reno	Office of Sponsored Projects
Budget Contact	Jennifer A Bonk	University of Nevada-Reno	Office of Sponsored Projects
Co-Principal Investigator	Corey L. Gucker	University of Nevada-Reno	Department of Biology
Co-Principal Investigator	Elizabeth A. Leger	University of Nevada-Reno	Department of Agriculture, Nutrition and Veterinary Sciences
Co-Principal Investigator	Eugenie M. MontBlanc	University of Nevada-Reno	Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science