Event is Hosted by Cal Poly Swanton Pacific Ranch’s Fuels and Vegetation Education program

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — An inaugural Prescribed Fire Training Exchange, hosted by Cal Poly Swanton Pacific Ranch’s Fuels and Vegetation Education program, kicked off this week in San Luis Obispo County. The program, funded by CALFIRE's Healthy Forest Initiative and the California Climate Initiative, incorporates eight days of training, both inside the classroom and at two prescribed burns.

The Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) brings together diverse groups of participants, offering attendees an opportunity to gain prescribed fire training and hands-on burning experience. TREX also develops key relationships and networks, with the goal of helping to expand the use of prescribed fire in California’s Central Coast region.

The TREX is scheduled Oct. 21-28, with the first two days of training focused on intensive classroom-based learning opportunities. TREX offers both entry level and advanced level training certification, giving participants from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to learn together.

“The Fuels and Vegetation Education team is excited to offer the inaugural SLO TREX in San Luis Obispo County. This training offers a unique opportunity to bring together fire practitioners from varied leadership, communities and skill levels,” said Kelly Meyer, program coordinator of Cal Poly’s Swanton Pacific Ranch Fuels and Vegetation Education program.  “My hope is that as we continue to build collaborative learning networks across the state, we will start seeing an increase in the pace and scale of fuel treatments on a large landscape scale. It is going to take everyone to increase opportunity and equity in fire and we all have a role to play.”

If conditions align and weather permits, SLO TREX will move training from the classroom to the field. Burns proposed at the California State Parks Central Coast District Harmony Headlands and at a Sequoia River Land Trust property located in the Carrizo Plain present the opportunity to implement prescribed fire for beneficial ecological outcomes.

TREX prescribed burns employ a recognized Incident Command System structure that includes qualified burn bosses and approved burn plans to safely and effectively use prescribed fire to meet both training and ecological objectives.

The San Luis Obispo Fire Safe Council is providing scholarship funding that will provide training to local fire practitioners and community members to be able to attend the eight-day training, with the shared goal of supporting local capacity building for prescribed fire. Many partner organizations, including Cal Poly, Cal Fire, California State Parks San Luis Obispo Coast District, SLO Botanical Gardens, SLO Fire Safe Council, Sequoia Riverlands Trust, Firestorm, and Sure-Fire Training have supported the TREX event, contributing resources from planning to implementation to follow-up phases of the process.

yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe (ytt) is another valued partner of SLO TREX and is actively working on returning good fire to their ancestral homelands of San Luis Obispo County. Organizing burn opportunities for their tribe and hosting a successful two-day fire seminar and cultural burn demonstration earlier this year, ytt will share their experiences collaborating with various agencies and landowners and navigating logistics and legalities necessary for cultural burns to become a reality for ytt.

“Our relatives stirred up fire on this land for thousands of years. After 174 years of being outlawed, we are stirring up fire again — the same people, in the same places, for the same purpose,” said Kelsey Shaffer, ytt cultural burn practitioner. “Just as we restore and protect native habitats and wildlife, we work to restore our people’s access to traditional places and role as caretakers.

“As a landless tribe, we rely on building meaningful relationships with partners who support us in revitalizing cultural practices using traditional eco-cultural knowledge and resources, who respect our sovereignty as first people.”

Burn Boss Sarah Gibson, California State Parks fire manager, will serve as the event’s incident commander in charge of overseeing the training. Gibson said participants have a goal to burn 277 acres of grass and coastal shrub at Harmony Headlands and 200 acres of grasslands in rural California Valley. 

“What is more important than the total acres we burn at TREX, is the on-the-ground training that happens where participants can learn about fire in ways that cannot happen in a classroom,” Gibson said. “The relationships built at TREX promote diverse place-based fire communities, where everyone has a seat at the table and capacity expands naturally.”

The public should expect traffic control, some smoky conditions for limited duration, and park closure the day of the Harmony Headlands burn.