Integrated Prescriptions and Burn Planning: Professional Practice Workshop

Prescriptions and burn plans are not independent documents. When they are written in isolation, ecological intent gets lost, burn plans become interpretive, and burn teams are forced to make field decisions without a clear feedback loop to improve future planning.

This three-day professional development workshop focuses on writing prescriptions and burn plans together as a single planning system. Using BC’s current provincial templates, participants learn how objectives, fire behaviour expectations, treatment layout, ignition strategy, and monitoring must align across both documents to support defensible decisions on burn day and meaningful post-burn evaluation.

The course is designed for those starting out and practitioners who already write prescriptions and burn plans, and want them to translate cleanly into operations without reinterpretation. Emphasis is placed on professional judgment, operational feasibility, and documenting fire behaviour logic in a way that supports implementation, review, and adaptive management.

The course is taught by a Registered Professional Forester, AFE Wildland Fire Ecologist, and practicing certified Burn Boss, and reflects how these documents are reviewed, challenged, and used in burn programs.

What You’ll Learn

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Write prescriptions and burn plans as an integrated planning system that supports burn teams and real-time decision-making on burn day

• Write prescriptions so the burn team can write the burn plan without the requirement for a professional signature

• Translate objectives into clear fire behaviour logic, treatment layout, and ignition intent across both documents

• Design fuel-, fire-behaviour-, and objective-driven stratification and plots that reflect how fire will interact with the site, rather than relying solely on timber-oriented layouts

• Apply intermediate fire behaviour knowledge to treatment design, burn timing, ignition strategy, and selection of plots

• Build monitoring into prescriptions so outcomes can be evaluated, defended, and adapted over time

• Use time, budget, and field effort more effectively

• Produce prescriptions that translate cleanly into burn plans and can be implemented by a Burn Boss without reinterpretation

This course builds directly on intermediate fire behaviour concepts (e.g., S-390). It is recommended to complete S-390 or equivalent as you’ll be ready to apply fire behaviour to real-world prescription design. S-390 teaches you how to fuel type, choose fire behaviour indices that make sense for the site and objectives, and write the fire behaviour, weather and desired fire effects pieces of the burn plan.

Three days of field and classroom. Course will run with a minimum of 14 students.

• How about other prescriptions?

  The learning outcomes and exercises in this course overlap with other non-burn prescriptions (range plans, ecosystem restoration prescriptions, wildland fire prevention prescriptions).  The instructor has experience in a variety of non-burn prescriptions and encourages you to bring what you use.

• What is this course about?

  This 3-day workshop teaches you how to write fuel management prescriptions that support effective prescribed fire. You’ll learn how to assess fuels, predict fire behaviour, integrate ecological fire effects, and develop prescriptions that align with BC’s 2025 FMP template. It’s practical, field-based, and focused on writing plans that get implemented.

• Do I get certified?

  A certificate will be given to prove your completion so you can put it towards professional development hours and resume.

• Who should take this course?

  • Registered Forest Professionals

  • FireSmart and fuel management planners

  • Prescribed fire practitioners and burn bosses

  • Indigenous land stewards

  • Government, NGO, and consulting staff involved in wildfire mitigation or ecosystem restoration

  If you’re involved in writing, reviewing, or implementing fuel treatments, this course is for you.

• How does this course support professional practice?

  This course was designed in response to the Forest Professionals BC (FPBC) scope-of-practice competencies. It helps forest professionals build confidence and competence in planning fire-informed fuel treatments that integrate legal, ecological, and operational requirements. You'll walk away with tools, field experience, and a guidebook tailored to BC’s 2025 FMP template.

• Is there fieldwork?

  Yes. You’ll get hands-on experience conducting a reconnaissance field visit, assessing fuels, interpreting fire behaviour, and mapping burn units that align with treatment goals. Field days are practical and collaborative.

• What’s included?

  • 3 days of instruction (classroom + field)

  • A professional guidebook on writing fuels management prescriptions for prescribed fire

  • Digital and printed course materials

  • Access to additional fire ecology and monitoring resources

• Where is the course held?

  This course rotates locations throughout BC, typically hosted in communities with active prescribed fire or fuel management programs. Check the course page or contact for upcoming session locations.

• What should I bring?

  You’ll receive a full packing list upon registration. You’ll need:

  • Field gear (boots, weather-appropriate layers, safety glasses, etc.)

  • Survey tools (the instructor has enough for training but more always helps)

  • Notebook or tablet for field data

  • A laptop or notebook for in-class exercises

  • The Field Guide to the Canadian Forest Fire Behavior (FBP) System aka Red Book

• Can you deliver this course privately?

  Yes. A tailored version of this course can be delivered for your organization, Nation, or agency. Contact to discuss a custom delivery, including private field sessions using your prescriptions or treatment areas.

• What makes this instructor qualified?

  Your instructor, Colleen Ross, is a Wildland Fire Ecologist, Registered Professional Forester (RPF), and Burn Boss with 30 years of hands-on experience in prescribed fire, wildfire operations, and land stewardship. She’s worked across western North America with Indigenous communities, government agencies, and land managers to develop, support and review plans and prescriptions that actually get implemented and burned.

  • Instructs fire courses including S-390, S-219, RX-310, and S-244

  • Helped shaped competencies for prescribed fire in BC

  • Authored operational tools and guides used by practitioners across the province

  • Designs monitoring frameworks to track long-term fire effects on vegetation, soils, wildlife and fuels

  • Completed the pilot to this course with excellent reviews and feedback.

  She brings deep technical knowledge, ecological insight, and real-world operational experience and is committed to mentoring the next wave of fire-informed professionals.