The conference session covered a variety of fire-related topics such as fire and ecosystem modeling, reforestation, wildfire risk assessment, post fire impacts to water resources, forest type conversion, and many more areas of study. I learned a lot from these sessions and had a great time meeting people. My co-worker attended the conference with me, and we saw and/or met many other people from the R3 regional office that were in attendance. I also had a couple of friends from the geography department at UNM that went to the conference as well. It was nice to have a sense of familiarity with several people at the conference and to also make connections with people that I had not met but that studied or worked in fire ecology.

I attended one of the optional field trips on Friday that took participants on a tour of the Hermit’s Peak- Calf Canyon burn scat near Las Vegas and Mora, NM. We heard from researchers and professionals working on reforestation and recovery in the area and visited a reforestation nursery. This was a powerful experience and really shaped how I look at resiliency and recovery in the face of unprecedentedly large fires that are the new norm in New Mexico and much of the Southwest. During the field trip we also stopped at a private ranch that hosts researchers and runs a summer camp and adult living center for people with disabilities. The landowner spoke to us about treatments on his property and the group discussed how both pre-fire and post-fire treatments shape forest and water systems as well as the effectiveness of certain treatments. The landowner and his neighbors had a lot of dogs (pictured in this post) that were able to run free and that stayed with the group for most of the day which was quite lovely. I really learned a lot by attending this conference and made many professional connections- it was a great time!