The Plumas County Cal-TREX training opportunity is returning this spring for the fifth time, offering yet another week of hands-on education and learning for prescribed fire students and enthusiasts. The Cal-TREX (short for “training exchange”) is a prescribed fire training opportunity held over the course of one week, from April 28 to May 4. This event brings together fire professionals and nontraditional partners in a joint effort to restore the ecological and community protection benefits of “good fire.”
The TREX model provides peer-to-peer learning and training for fire professionals, weekend burn pile aficionados, and anyone in between to gain certifications and experiences with a goal of increasing the number of qualified personnel able to work on prescribed fires in Plumas County, reports Julia Sidman, of the Plumas Cal-TREX Incident Management Team.
This training exchange model helps support groups like the local Plumas Underburn Cooperative. Based in Plumas County, the cooperative is a group of citizens who assist each other in the use of prescribed fire throughout the county. The group helps landowners navigate permitting and logistics, and provides tools and volunteers on burn days. Many cooperative members have an interest in furthering their experience with prescribed fire, so the TREX event is a welcome opportunity to participate in something that is often accessible only to agency employees, said Sidman.
“After the destruction of the North Complex, Beckwourth Complex and Dixie fires that have occurred in Plumas County the last few years, cooperating entities of the Plumas County Cal-TREX see prescribed fire as a critical tool to get ahead of the problem,” said Sidman. “Fire plays a key ecological role in the Sierra Nevada but that role has been absent for well over a century.”
Sidman points out that the wildfires of today are a result of multiple factors, but a powerful driver of extreme fire behavior is the accumulation of vegetation (fuel) left untreated by the removal of regular fire intervals. The week-long Cal-TREX event will be an opportunity for participants to gain hands-on experience, as well as a deeper understanding of the ecological importance of prescribed fire.
Participants in TREX will become a part of an on-call team that can be notified, often on short notice, of an opportunity to implement prescribed fire, called a “burn window.” Organizers hope that with more personnel available, and the right conditions, there is potential to utilize prescribed fire at multiple locations around Plumas County on both public and private lands.
TREX events usually draw participants from a large regional area spanning several counties, said Sidman. Participants range from landowners looking to manage their land, to college students earning their basic firefighter qualifications, to seasoned fire professionals receiving experiences to qualify for a burn boss or a specialized incident command position.
This year the event will take place in Greenville. Interested participants can apply online and registration is open until March 1. There is a fee of $175 to attend, though full and partial scholarships are available thanks to the Healthy Forest Alliance. There will also be optional classroom and field-based training opportunities, including certifications, made available to participants. Further details about the TREX event, including participant information and registration details, can be found at https://plumasunderburn.org/trex/.
In addition to the Plumas Underburn Cooperative, the Feather River Resource Conservation District and the Plumas County Fire Safe Council, event cooperators include the University of California Cooperative Extension, Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, Feather River College, Butte Resource Conservation District, Butte Prescribed Burn Association, Cal Fire Lassen-Modoc, the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, the Healthy Forest Alliance, Plumas National Forest and the Watershed Research and Training Center. Questions can be sent to Logan Krahenbuhl (incident coordinator) at [email protected].
Information submitted by Plumas Cal-TREX Incident Management Team
