Monitoring is more than collecting data. It is understanding whether fire and fire treatments are achieving the outcomes they were intended to achieve.
If you are planning prescribed burns, implementing treatments, writing prescriptions, evaluating wildfire impacts, or reporting on ecological outcomes, this workshop will help you connect monitoring to decision-making. Monitoring should answer practical questions. Did the treatment reduce fuels as intended? Did it create the habitat conditions you were targeting? Were important values protected? Is the ecosystem moving toward the desired future condition?
This workshop focuses on designing monitoring programs that connect resource objectives, burn objectives, fire effects, and ecological response. Participants learn how to select meaningful monitoring variables, choose appropriate protocols, interpret results, and use monitoring to improve future management actions.
The workshop explores both first-order fire effects, such as fuel consumption, crown scorch, soil heating, and burn severity, and second-order fire effects, including delayed mortality, vegetation recovery, invasive species response, wildlife habitat development, hydrologic change, and future changes. Participants will learn how fire behaviour, fuels, weather, and site conditions interact to shape ecological outcomes.
Whether your work involves prescribed fire, wildfire risk reduction, ecosystem restoration, cultural burning, forestry, range management, parks, wildlife habitat, or community wildfire resilience, this workshop provides practical tools for evaluating treatment effectiveness and supporting adaptive management.
Who This Workshop Is For
This workshop is designed for practitioners involved in planning, implementing, monitoring, or evaluating fire and fire treatments. Past participants have included staff from BC Wildfire Service, the Ministry of Forests, First Nations, municipal governments, consulting firms, community forests, fire departments, academia/students, parks agencies, and ecosystem restoration programs.
The workshop is particularly relevant for:
• Burn Bosses, Firing Bosses, Fire Effects Monitors and prescribed fire practitioners
• Fuels management specialists
• Foresters and silviculture professionals
• Biologists, Agrologists and restoration practitioners
• Wildfire personnel and Rehab Specialists
• Community wildfire resilience and FireSmart practitioners
• First Nations land stewardship and cultural fire programs
• Municipal and regional government staff
What You'll Walk Away With
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:
• Develop monitoring plans that directly support resource objectives and treatment goals
• Select monitoring approaches (e.g., rapid assessment, detailed monitoring, research grade), levels (e.g., short or long-term change) and variables (e.g., scorch, char, cover, frequency) that answer meaningful management questions
• Establish plots and collect repeatable, defensible field data
• Evaluate first-order and second-order fire effects across fuels, vegetation, soils, wildlife habitat, hydrology, riparian areas, and cultural values
• Assess treatment effectiveness and determine whether objectives were achieved
• Interpret burn severity in the context of ecological response and recovery
• Incorporate fire effects monitoring into existing vegetation, silviculture, wildlife, fuels, and restoration monitoring programs
• Use monitoring results to support adaptive management and improve future treatments
Included Resources
Participants receive:
• A comprehensive workshop manual
• Monitoring plan templates and field forms
• Rapid assessment and detailed monitoring protocols
• Fire effects interpretation tools
• Example monitoring plans and reporting formats
• Ongoing access to workshop resources and data collection tools
What Makes This Workshop Different
This is not a generic monitoring course and it is not a Fire Effects Monitor (S-244) course.
The focus is on connecting resource objectives, fire behaviour, fire effects, monitoring, and future management decisions. Participants learn how to design monitoring that answers management questions and supports adaptive management rather than simply collecting data.
The emphasis is practical and operational. Monitoring is treated as part of the treatment process itself, helping practitioners understand whether fire and fire treatments are achieving desired ecological, cultural, and hazard reduction outcomes.
Course Format
The workshop combines classroom instruction, field exercises, and hands-on application over three days.
Participants work through realistic scenarios, develop monitoring plans, interpret fire effects, evaluate treatment outcomes, and practice applying monitoring methods commonly used in prescribed fire, wildfire recovery, ecosystem restoration, and fuels management projects.
Instructor and Guest Speaker
Colleen Ross, RPF, BIT, AFE Certified Fire Ecologist
Colleen has nearly three decades of experience in wildland fire and resource management including working on fire effects monitoring crews. She is a certified Fire Effects Monitor, Fire Behaviour Analyst, and Type 1 Burn Boss. Her work focuses on helping organizations and communities design and implement practical, defensible burn programs that support both ecological and hazard reduction objectives.
Special Guest TBD
Past Guest: Sasha Nasonova, Remote Sensing Specialist, Ministry of Forests
Sasha presented on remote sensing applications for fire monitoring, including burn severity mapping, dNBR, strengths and limitations of satellite products, and the importance of field validation using approaches such as the Composite Burn Index (CBI).
Course Details
Location: Kelowna, British Columbia
Duration: Three days
Professional Development: 24 CPD hours plus pre-course preparation
Registration Limit: 15 participants
Course Fee: $750
A Note for Employers
Participants leave with practical monitoring tools that can be applied immediately to prescribed fire, wildfire recovery, ecosystem restoration, fuels management, and community wildfire resilience projects. The workshop supports defensible monitoring, objective-based reporting, adaptive management, and continuous improvement of treatment effectiveness over time.