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USDA Forest Service and TNC Forge First Prescribed Fire and Forest Restoration Partnership in Wyoming on Bridger-Teton National Forest

November 14, 2024 | Jackson, Wyoming

View of forest floor with flowers.
Tensleep Preserve Wyoming's forests regulate and supply water, clean the air, provide habitat for wildlife, produce timber, and enable recreational opportunities such as hunting and hiking. © Franklin Eccher

Media Contacts

The Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) and the Wyoming Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) have partnered together for the first time in Wyoming to expand forest restoration, accelerate the use of prescribed fire in the state’s fire-adapted forest ecosystems and increase the number of acres treated by the USDA Forest Service. Facilitated by the TNC Master Participating Agreements with the Forest Service, fire specialists from TNC's national-level prescribed fire crew were deployed in Fall 2024 to add capacity to BTNF’s already existing fuels program and body of work, which focuses on reducing the risk severe wildfire poses to communities near the national forest and improving overall forest health. Crews are expected to return in Spring 2025 to pursue further forest restoration work, including prescribed burning as weather permits.

“Partners have been, and remain, an essential part of implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and are a welcomed asset to completing prescribed fire projects on the forest,” said Mary Cernicek, a spokesperson for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. "Working collaboratively with The Nature Conservancy, the Bridger-Teton hopes to be able to increase the pace and scale of wildfire risk reduction work in the communities where it’s needed most.”

Partners have been, and remain, an essential part of implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and are a welcomed asset to completing prescribed fire projects on the forest.

Mary Cernicek

Bridger-Teton National Fores

This partnership helps to advance the goals of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy and the Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy by supporting prescribed fire, restorative forest thinning projects, and fire practitioner job training and workforce development, with a focus on fire-adapted landscapes and cultures in the U.S. West. With widespread shortages of trained fire specialists in the labor force and vast areas of the national forest system in need of restoration, the Forest Service has sought to partner with fire specialists from non-profit organizations and state and local crews to quickly advance through a backlog of fire work. TNC is uniquely positioned to support this work, as it has a 60-year history of working with fire (20 years of which have been in partnership with the Forest Service). The collaboration with BTNF, however, is the first of its kind in Wyoming. 

“We know that strategic, proactive activities like forest thinning and prescribed fire can improve ecosystem health, slow wildfire spread and facilitate better wildfire suppression within a landscape,” said Carli Kierstead, TNC Wyoming Forest Program Director. “And even better, when we focus those efforts in the wildland urban interface, we can help reduce wildfire risk to nearby communities.”

All TNC crew members are qualified under National Wildfire Coordinating Group standards. The crew’s activities include prescribed fire prep work such as thinning undesirable trees and brush, prescribed fire implementation work including burning slash piles and broadcast burning, and data collection/monitoring the effects of prescribed fire. Through the expanded workforce, crews will help reduce wildfire risk to communities and improve the forest health. 

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The Bridger-Teton National Forest encompasses 3.4 million acres in western Wyoming and is the headwaters to 3 major drainages including the Green/Colorado, Snake/ Columbia, and Yellowstone/Missouri Rivers. For other news, events and information you can call 307-739-5500, visit Bridger-Teton National Forest or follow on Facebook @BridgerTetonNF or on X (formerly Twitter) @BridgerTetonNF. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender.

The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. Guided by science, we create innovative, on-the-ground solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that nature and people can thrive together. We are tackling climate change, conserving lands, waters and oceans at an unprecedented scale, providing food and water sustainably and helping make cities more sustainable. The Nature Conservancy is working to make a lasting difference around the world in 81 countries and territories (40 by direct conservation impact and 41 through partners) through a collaborative approach that engages local communities, governments, the private sector, and other partners. To learn more, visit nature.org or follow @nature_press on X.

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