Prescribed Fire Training
What type of fire training do you need?
If you are interested in learning to burn your own private land, you may want to begin with our Private Lands Prescribed Fire Program for more direct support. Training and lifelong learning are important for everyone involved in the application of prescribed fire. However, depending on your goals there are different certifications and standards to consider. The following are quick explanations of the most frequent categories of training we engage with.
Improve Your Fire Practice
Not all learning needs to be in pursuit of a certification or credential. Many of the training opportunities we offer are just about improving your practice of prescribed fire to safely meet land management objectives. These may be less formal “learn-and-burn” events, landowner workshops, or other hands-on opportunities. Search our calendar of events for trainings and other events.
State Certification Programs
These are the most common certifications sought by those burning on private lands. Each state is a little different, combining training and experience requirements to achieve and maintain a certification that often comes with benefits, such as a different liability standard. Tall Timbers does not have the authority to conduct trainings for state certifications. We are exploring options for how we can help with these important and popular training needs. Here are links for the Florida, Georgia, and Alabama certification programs.
National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Sanctioned Training
These standards and trainings were developed for consistency in wildland fire operations among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners, and have been adopted by many agencies and organizations. Tall Timbers delivers NWCG sanctioned trainings and these are the most common standards if you engage in work that crosses over with wildland firefighting.
Employer Requirements
Organizations and agencies often establish their own unique mix of training requirements for their staff members. Tall Timbers can partner with you to help meet employer specific training needs. Examples include partnerships with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, New England and Mid-Atlantic states, and the US Department of Defense.
Fire Training Program Highlights
Tall Timbers delivers NWCG coursework and field-based hands on experience to civilian employees of the Department of Defense who are charged with managing fire on military installations nationwide. Department of Defense lands are important refugia for many threatened and endangered species whose habitat depends on frequent fire to remain healthy.
Tall Timbers is the host site for The Prescribed Fire Training Center (PFTC), a unique program blending maximum field prescribed burning experience with a flexible curriculum of classroom instruction on foundational topics for prescribed fire practitioners. Provides opportunities for federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies and other organizations to build skills and knowledge of prescribed fire, with an emphasis on field experience.
Through our training program, Tall Timbers develops and delivers fire training and education to private landowners across the country, promoting the safe, ecologically sound use of fire for wildlife habitat improvement and maintenance, wildfire protection, forest health improvement and the management of native plant communities.
