Hi everyone! My name is Michael Vazquez Feliciano, and I’m thrilled to be part of the Forest Service team as a Natural Resources Specialist. To provide some context on how I came to this position, I first want to mention that I earned my master’s degree in planning with a focus on environment and society. Before joining this project, I worked as a Planner for a non-profit organization, where I collaborated on community resilience plans with various communities in Puerto Rico. It’s for this reason that I decided to specialize in environmental topics that can assist communities, leading me to join the project as an intern for the Community Wildland Fire Defense Education and Outreach at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF).

Regarding my current position, my primary goal is to prepare educational material related to wildfires. This information will be used to educate and provide guidance to the communities most affected by this issue in Puerto Rico. Additionally, it will be presented to different agencies working on wildfires issues. In recent weeks, I’ve been tasked with conducting a literature review on discussions about wildfires in Puerto Rico, utilizing resources from the IITF Library and gathering numerous articles and news from the web to begin organizing relevant information on the topic.

During these initial weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in numerous activities and meetings with various state and federal agencies currently involved in different projects related to wildfires. These meetings have allowed me to start establishing relationships with the entities I’ll be collaborating with during my internship, helping me identify valuable resources for creating educational materials on wildfires. I've also been able to start expressing myself, providing me with a space to share and talk about my accomplishments and interest regarding what I've done and what I'm interested in doing in the program.

In one of the first meetings, I had the opportunity to interact with personnel from different agencies, such as the Puerto Rico Fire Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA). This meeting was aimed at learning about the locations of the different Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS) located in the municipality of Guánica. In another meeting, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on fire shelters with the Fire Department of Puerto Rico in Juncos. This was a very interesting workshop that was very helpful in learning about the safety topics discussed in the IRPG (Incident Response Pocket Guide).

Being immersed in these experiences has been essential in understanding how these organizations are working on various projects aimed at preserving natural resources. This has motivated me to continue learning and staying informed about these crucial topics, aiming to provide information that will greatly benefit communities vulnerable to wildfire issues.