Studio Nomad – Page 2 – Wildland Fire Canada Conference

Westly Steed

Westly Steed

Wildfire Risk Management Coordinator, Forest Management Division, Government of the Northwest Territories

Wes, born and raised in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, has been with Forest Management Division, Environment and Natural Resources of the GNWT since 2010. He joined the team at ENR as the FireSmart Coordinator and currently is the Wildfire Risk Management Coordinator. At FMD we work with our regional staff in the NWT to complete and update Community Wildfire Protection Plans, provided fiscal support for implementing community FireSmart initiatives, and continue to support the communities in reducing risk.

During the fire season Wes is a Territorial Duty Officer and during large fire events is part of the Incident Management Teams when required.

Wes is a retired Fire Chief of the Fort Smith Volunteer Fire Department of 18 years, a past Chairperson of the CIFFC Mitigation and Prevention Committee, and the coordinator of the Fort Providence Wildfire Experimental Site (formerly known as the ICFME site). He has a love of the north, its people and plans to retire in Fort Smith in a few years.

Other Speakers

Magda Zachara

Michelle Vandevord

Tanya Letcher

Marc-André Parisien

Kit O’Connor

Kit O’Connor

Research Ecologist

Kit O’Connor is a Research Ecologist with the Wildfire Risk Management Science Team, housed in the Human Dimensions Program at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Kit’s primary research interest is in bridging the human and ecosystem dimensions of fire management; including the use of pre-fire planning and operational decision support analytics to promote ecosystem restoration and resilience, safe and effective suppression response, and sustainable forest and fire management systems. Kit is one of the analytics leads for the National Risk Management Assistance Program for large wildfire management and is a core member of the Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) strategic fire planning team currently working with more than 60 national forests, three states, and numerous other public, private, and tribal land managers to develop and implement sustainable fire management plans. Specific references to his research are included in two line items of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocating $100M for expanded implementation of the PODs framework and $500M to identify and reinforce Potential Control Locations. Kit has a B.S. in Entomology from Penn State University, an M.S. in Biology from The University of Quebec at Montreal, and a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management from The University of Arizona. He is recipient of the 2019 and 2021 Rocky Mountain Research Station Science Delivery Awards and the 2020 USFS Deputy Chief’s Award for Science Delivery. Kit lives in Missoula, Montana where he enjoys trail running, mountain biking, and family campouts with his wife, daughters, and three dogs.

Other Speakers

Oliver Costello

Marc-André Parisien

Michelle Vandevord

Lori Daniels

Amanda Monthei

Amanda Monthei

Amanda Monthei is a writer, public information officer, podcast producer and former hotshot for the US Forest Service. After leaving operational fire in 2019, she figured the best way to evade the looming boredom/nostalgia of no longer fighting fire was to braid her love of storytelling with her passion for wildfire; since then, she has written about wildfire for a number of US magazines and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Outside Online, Deseret News and others. She also produces and hosts Life with Fire Podcast, which she created to help cultivate a greater public understanding of wildfire while exploring how we can better coexist with it in the future.

Amanda lives in Bellingham, WA, where she often juxtaposes writing/talking/thinking about wildfire with biking/skiing/fishing in the rain.

Other Speakers

Lori Daniels

Marc-André Parisien

Cliff Buettner

Oliver Costello

Lori Daniels

Lori Daniels

Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences
Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada

Dr. Lori Daniels is a Professor of Forest Ecology in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, where she
directs the Tree-Ring Lab at UBC. Lori investigates the impacts of natural and human disturbances and climate change on
forests. With her research team, she has on-going projects on wildfires, forest dynamics, and social-ecological resilience
to climate change across British Columbia. Her enduring partnerships with local, provincial, and national governments,
environmental organizations, forest management companies, community forests, and First Nations ensure her scientific
advances are translated to active conservation, restoration and management. She contributed to the Blueprint for
Wildland Fire Science in Canada and served as a member of the Canadian Wildfire Strategy Implementation Team and
the NSERC-Canada Wildfire Research Network. Since 2015, she has given more than 200 media interviews on wildfires
and their impacts on forests and communities. She is among the 150 Canadian Scientists recognized in 2017 for research
shaping new frontiers and making our world a better place (#150Scientists). She was acknowledged as a Women Leader
in international fire science research in 2018, received the 2019 Canadian Institute of Forestry Scientific Achievement
Award and 2022 James J. Parsons Distinguished Career in Biogeography Award from the American Association of
Geographers.

Other Speakers

Sarah Henderson

Magda Zachara

Alex Zahara

Tanya Letcher

Cliff Buettner

Cliff Buettner

Director of Forestry and Emergency Protective Services Prince Albert Grand Council

I graduated from Renewable Resources Technology – Kelsey Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences (Saskatoon) in 1980. I worked for Saskatchewan Environment and seasonally seconded to Wildfire Management Branch for 17 years primarily involved in Wildland Fire Suppression Operations.

I was hired as a Forestry Technologist in 1999 for the Prince Albert Grand Council, and over the past 23 years promoted to the Program Director for Forestry and Emergency Protective Services.

I represent PAGC on the CIFFC Technical working group and currently the Vice President of the Prince Albert Model Forest Inc. which is part of the Canadian Model Forest Network.

Our office provides Response Service contract administration for 35 First Nation fire crews in 12 First Nations as part of a 5-year Saskatchewan Response Services Agreement. Additionally, the Saskatchewan First Nations Emergency Management and PAGC Search, Rescue and Recovery services for all Saskatchewan First Nations are administered through our office.

Our office also provides Wildland Fire Certification and Training through contractual services with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency.

We are currently involved fiscally and have completed many on-reserve Fuel Hazard Reduction projects funded by Indigenous Services Canada through the Emergency Management Assistance Program. We also provide contract services for Fuel Mitigation projects in communities and recreational subdivisions tendered through the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency.

Other Speakers

Michelle Vandevord

Natasha Broznitsky

Sarah Henderson

Pierre Martel

Sarah Henderson

Sarah Henderson

Dr. Sarah Henderson is the Scientific Director of Environmental Health Services at the BC Centre for Disease Control and the Scientific Director of the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health (NCCEH). She is also an Associate Professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Henderson oversees a broad program of applied research, surveillance, and knowledge translation to support evidence-based environmental health policy and practice in BC and across Canada. She has been studying the population health effects of wildfire smoke for more than 20 years.

Other Speakers

Amanda Monthei

Kit O’Connor

Tanya Letcher

Natasha Broznitsky

Marc-André Parisien

Marc-André Parisien

Marc-André Parisien is a research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre, (Edmonton, Alberta) where he has been working with the fire research group since 2000. He was trained as a forest ecologist and holds a BSc from McGill University, a MSc from l’Université du Québec à Rimouski, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His research on wildland fire is focused on understanding biophysical controls on fire regimes, mostly within the boreal biome of North America. He specializes in quantitative analysis methods, including process-based simulation modeling, a tool he uses for mapping wildfire risk. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and his work has been featured in the scientific and popular media.

Other Speakers

Cliff Buettner

Pierre Martel

Sarah Henderson

Magda Zachara

Jane Park

Jane Park

Jane Park has been the Fire and Vegetation Specialist in Banff National Park located on the traditional territories of the Treaty 6, 7 and 8 First Nations and the Metis Nation homeland, since 2011. She started her career with Parks Canada in 2002 as a park warden for Banff National Park and has worked in various parks from Vuntut National Park (traditional territory of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation) in the Yukon to Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve (traditional territory of the Haida Nation) on the northwest coast of BC. Her work in Banff focuses on the reintroduction of fire onto the landscape, wildfire and fuel management, non-native and invasive vegetation management, and ecosystem restoration. She is also an Incident Commander on one of 5 Parks Canada National Incident Management teams. Her recent work includes raising awareness of gender and diversity issues within Parks Canada and the broader wildland fire community in collaboration with colleagues in various other fire agencies.

Other Speakers

Amanda Monthei

Westly Steed

Kit O’Connor

Natasha Broznitsky

Natasha Broznitsky

Natasha Broznitsky

Natasha Broznitsky is a Research and Innovation Officer with the BC Wildfire Service and is responsible for facilitating research the BC Wildfire Service is involved in. She has been the BCWS lead on health research projects covering various aspects of wildland fire personnel health, including respiratory and dermal exposure and psychosocial and mental health. Natasha started with the BCWS in 2014 as a firefighter on an Initial Attack crew in Williams Lake. She now lives in Powell River and assists the Sunshine Coast Zone and with importing and exporting out of province staff during times of high fire activity.

Other Speakers

Cliff Buettner

Kit O’Connor

Marc-André Parisien

Michelle Vandevord