P R E S I DEN T ’ S D ESK
A NEW YEAR AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES TODDI STEELMAN IAWF PRESIDENT
2020 will live forever in our memories as a year without precedent. The COVID-19 pandemic. A global recession. A generational reckoning over racial inequity. And one of the hottest years on record. The year was bookended by historic wildland fires in Australia and in the United States. But those were not the only places to witness momentous fire events. Siberia experienced “zombie fires”, underground smoldering fires resurrected from the previous year, which were driven by record setting heat in the Arctic. The Amazon experienced a second year of record burning in the last decade. The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, also experienced record setting wildland fires.
IAWF is poised to assist in efforts to bring people together through our networks, foster dynamic environments for continuous learning and inspiration, and create the opportunity for a more sustainable wildland fire paradigm. 4
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JANUARY - MARCH 2021
In 2021, we will be looking for what our next “normal” will be. I believe we have an equally historic opportunity to reset our expectations across numerous dimensions, including wildland fire. In 1920 after the Spanish flu ravaged the globe, the roaring ‘20s were ushered in as an era of innovation, risk taking and originality. In many ways, it was an era that shifted the mark on what was possible. And if we are clever, we can once again capitalize on a moment in history where transformational change is imaginable. Change is most likely to happen when we achieve alignment among what our broadscale culture will support, what our institutional structures (laws, policies and established procedures) are set up to achieve, and when we have individual champions who will drive the change forward. Culturally, coming into 2021 we are primed for the public at large to be in greater support of change to improve wildland fire due to the attention over the previous wildland fire year and the mounting attention to climate change. Compared to where the world was a decade ago, climate change and wildland fire are more in the news and have captured the attention of a public that is eager to see greater action. Institutionally, we need to be ready to push forward with the best practices, policies, and activities that we know
